Re: [PATCH 20/24] rcu/tree: Make kvfree_rcu() tolerate any alignment

From: Joel Fernandes
Date: Sun May 03 2020 - 20:31:11 EST


On Sun, May 03, 2020 at 05:29:47PM -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> On Sun, May 03, 2020 at 08:24:37PM -0400, Joel Fernandes wrote:
> > On Fri, May 01, 2020 at 04:00:52PM -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > > On Tue, Apr 28, 2020 at 10:58:59PM +0200, Uladzislau Rezki (Sony) wrote:
> > > > From: "Joel Fernandes (Google)" <joel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > > >
> > > > Handle cases where the the object being kvfree_rcu()'d is not aligned by
> > > > 2-byte boundaries.
> > > >
> > > > Signed-off-by: Uladzislau Rezki (Sony) <urezki@xxxxxxxxx>
> > > > Signed-off-by: Joel Fernandes (Google) <joel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > > > ---
> > > > kernel/rcu/tree.c | 9 ++++++---
> > > > 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
> > > >
> > > > diff --git a/kernel/rcu/tree.c b/kernel/rcu/tree.c
> > > > index 501cac02146d..649bad7ad0f0 100644
> > > > --- a/kernel/rcu/tree.c
> > > > +++ b/kernel/rcu/tree.c
> > > > @@ -2877,6 +2877,9 @@ struct kvfree_rcu_bulk_data {
> > > > #define KVFREE_BULK_MAX_ENTR \
> > > > ((PAGE_SIZE - sizeof(struct kvfree_rcu_bulk_data)) / sizeof(void *))
> > > >
> > > > +/* Encoding the offset of a fake rcu_head to indicate the head is a wrapper. */
> > > > +#define RCU_HEADLESS_KFREE BIT(31)
> > >
> > > Did I miss the check for freeing something larger than 2GB? Or is this
> > > impossible, even on systems with many terabytes of physical memory?
> > > Even if it is currently impossible, what prevents it from suddenly
> > > becoming all too possible at some random point in the future? If you
> > > think that this will never happen, please keep in mind that the first
> > > time I heard "640K ought to be enough for anybody", it sounded eminently
> > > reasonable to me.
> > >
> > > Besides...
> > >
> > > Isn't the offset in question the offset of an rcu_head struct within
> > > the enclosing structure? If so, why not keep the current requirement
> > > that this be at least 16-bit aligned, especially given that some work
> > > is required to make that alignment less than pointer sized? Then you
> > > can continue using bit 0.
> > >
> > > This alignment requirement is included in the RCU requirements
> > > documentation and is enforced within the __call_rcu() function.
> > >
> > > So let's leave this at bit 0.
> >
> > This patch is needed only if we are growing the fake rcu_head. Since you
> > mentioned in a previous patch in this series that you don't want to do that,
> > and just rely on availability of the array of pointers or synchronize_rcu(),
> > we can drop this patch. If we are not dropping that earlier patch, let us
> > discuss more.
>
> Dropping it sounds very good to me!

Cool ;-) Thanks,

- Joel