Re: [PATCH 1/2] mm: Make alloc_contig_range handle free hugetlb pages

From: Oscar Salvador
Date: Fri Feb 19 2021 - 05:16:41 EST


On Fri, Feb 19, 2021 at 10:56:42AM +0100, Michal Hocko wrote:
> OK, this should work but I am really wondering whether it wouldn't be
> just simpler to replace the old page by a new one in the free list
> directly. Or is there any reason we have to go through the generic
> helpers path? I mean something like this
>
> new_page = alloc_fresh_huge_page();
> if (!new_page)
> goto fail;
> spin_lock(hugetlb_lock);
> if (!PageHuge(old_page)) {
> /* freed from under us, nothing to do */
> __update_and_free_page(new_page);
> goto unlock;
> }
> list_del(&old_page->lru);
> __update_and_free_page(old_page);
> __enqueue_huge_page(new_page);
> unlock:
> spin_unlock(hugetlb_lock);
>
> This will require to split update_and_free_page and enqueue_huge_page to
> counters independent parts but that shouldn't be a big deal. But it will
> also protect from any races. Not an act of beauty but seems less hackish
> to me.

Yes, I think this would to the trick, and it is race-free.
Let me play with it a bit and see what I can come up with.

Thanks for the valuable insight.

--
Oscar Salvador
SUSE L3