Re: [PATCH v5 1/5] mm,memory_hotplug: Allocate memmap from the added memory range

[Michal Hocko]

On Wed 24-03-21 11:12:59, Oscar Salvador wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 23, 2021 at 11:11:58AM +0100, Michal Hocko wrote:
> > [Sorry for a long overdue review. I didn't have time to follow previous
> > versions so I am sorry if some of my concerns have been discussed
> > already]
> 
> No worries, let's go ;-)
> 
> > I was playing with movable_node and performance implications back in
> > 2017 (unfortunately I do not have specific numbers anymore) and the
> > setup was a bit extreme - a single node (0) with normal zones and all
> > other nodes with movable memory only. So not only struct pages but any
> > other kernel metadata were on a remote node. I remember I could see
> > clear performance drop scaling with the distance from node 0 somewhere
> > betweem 5-10% on kbuild bound on a movable node.
> 
> I see. Yes, it is a rather extreme case, but I think it clearly shows the impact
> of having metadata structures on a non-local node.

Well, the original intention behind that setup was to have all nodes but
node 0 movable to support memory hotplug which the machine allowes.
There are many downsides but I wouldn't be surprised if somebody still
tried to push this way.
  
[...]
> > > Hot-remove:
> > > 
> > >  We need to be careful when removing memory, as adding and
> > >  removing memory needs to be done with the same granularity.
> > >  To check that this assumption is not violated, we check the
> > >  memory range we want to remove and if a) any memory block has
> > >  vmemmap pages and b) the range spans more than a single memory
> > >  block, we scream out loud and refuse to proceed.
> > 
> > Is this a real problem? If each memory block has its own vmemmap then we
> > should be just fine, no?
> 
> Not entirely.
> 
> Assume this:
> 
> - memory_block_size = 128MB
> - add_memory(256MB) : no uses altmap because size != memory_block_size
> - add_memory(128MB) : uses altmap

256 are two memory blocks so why couldn't we split the operation and add
two altmaps each for its own memory block?

> Now, when trying to remove the memory, we should construct the altmap to let
> remove_pmd_table->free_hugepage_table() know that it needs to call vmem_altmap_free()
> instead of free_pagetable() for those sections that were populated using altmap.
> 
> But that becomes trickier to handle if user does remove_memory(384MB) at once.
> 
> The only reasonable way I can think of is something like:
> 
> /*
>  * Try to diferentiate which ranges used altmap when populating vmemmap,
>  * and construct the altmap for those
>  */
>  loop(size / section_size)

block_size I suspect

>   if (range_used altmap)
>    arch_remove_memory(nid, start, size, altmap);
>   else
>    arch_remove_memory(nid, start, size, NULL);

We should know because we do have memory block when removing memory.

> But I do not think this is any better than make this scenario completely a NO-NO,
> because in the end, this is asking for trouble.
> And yes, normal qemu/barematal users does not have the hability to play these
> kind of tricks, as baremetal has HW limitations and qemu creates a device for
> every range you hot-add (so you are tied to that device when removing memory
> as well), but other users e.g: virtio-mem can do that.

I am not against reducing functionality for the initial version where it
makes sense. E.g. partial memory blocks. But if the overall hotplug
operation can be devided into multiple blocks then there shouldn't be
any real reason for restrictions IMHO.

[...]
> > - online_pages for some reason needs to know about the reserved vmemmap
> >   space. Why? It already knows the intial pfn to online. Why cannot
> >   caller simply alter both start pfn and nr_pages to online everything
> >   after the vmemmap space? This is somehow conflating the mem block
> >   concept deeper into onlining.
> > - the same applies to offlining.
> 
> Because some counters need not only the buddy_nr_pages, but the complete
> range.
> 
> So, let us see what online_pages() do (offline_pages() as well but slightly
> different in some areas)
> 
> - move_pfn_range_to_zone():
>   1) Resize node and zone spanned pages
>      * If we were only to pass the nr_pages without the vmemmap pages,
>        node/zone's spanned pages would be wrong as vmemmap pages would not
>        be accounted in there.

Why is that a problem? That memory is not usable anyway.

>   2) Inits struct pages by memmap_init_range() and sets its migratetype
>      * If we were only to pass the nr_pages without the vmemmap pages,
>        vmemmap pages would be totally unitialized.
>        We also set its migratetype to MIGRATE_UNMOVABLE.
>        Previous versions initialize vmemmap pages in another place but
>        there was a consensus to do it here.

Migrate type for pages backing vmemmap?

>  So on, this case, we have:
> 
>  if (nr_vmemmap_pages)
>     move_pfn_range_to_zone(zone, pfn, nr_vmemmap_pages, NULL,
>                                        MIGRATE_UNMOVABLE);
>  move_pfn_range_to_zone(zone, buddy_start_pfn, buddy_nr_pages, NULL
>                         MIGRATE_ISOLATE);
> 
> - Increment zone->present_pages
>   * We need to account buddy_pages + vmemmap_pages here

You can compensate for that by accounting present_pages where you
allocate them - when the memory is hot removed.

> - zone->zone_pgdat->node_present_pages
>   * Same as above
> 
> - online_pages_range() (onlines the pages, __and__ the sections)
>   * Here do not only need the (buddy_pages, end_pages), but (vmemmap_pages, end_pages)
>     as well, because on one hand we do:
> 
>     online_pages_range()
>     {
>        for (pfn = start_pfn; pfn < end_pfn; pfn += MAX_ORDER_NR_PAGES)
>                 (*online_page_callback)(pfn_to_page(pfn), MAX_ORDER - 1);
> 
>        online_mem_sections(start_pfn, end_pfn);
>    }
> 
>    For the call to online_mem_sections, we need to whole range (including the vmemmap
>    pages), otherwise, if a whole section only contains vmemmap pages, the section
>    might be left marked as offline, and that is troublesome.

I would like to hear much more about those troubles.
 
> As I said, the same applies to offline_pages(), but with slightly tweaks here and
> there because it handles somewhat different things.
> 
> I kind of understand to be reluctant to use vmemmap_pages terminology here, but
> unfortunately we need to know about it.
> We could rename nr_vmemmap_pages to offset_buddy_pages or something like that.

I am not convinced. It seems you are justr trying to graft the new
functionality in. But I still believe that {on,off}lining shouldn't care
about where their vmemmaps come from at all. It should be a
responsibility of the code which reserves that space to compansate for
accounting. Otherwise we will end up with a hard to maintain code
because expectations would be spread at way too many places. Not to
mention different pfns that the code should care about.
 
> > - finally hotremove - which is the most tricky part. try_remove_memory
> >   learns about vmemmap reserved space and provides it to __remove_pages
> >   and eventually all the way down to remove_pagetable via altmap
> >   Now a question and something I have stumbled over few years back when
> >   looking into this. Let's say you have multi section memblock so the
> >   first section of the block backs vmemmaps for all other sections.
> >   What happens when you drop the first worth of section before tearing
> >   down all other vmemmaps?
> 
> I guess you refer to the case were:
> 
> - memory_block_size: 1GB (8 sections)
> [memory_block] : first 4096 pfns are for vmemmap
> 
> Nothing happens, but I see where your comment is comming from.
> 
> Back in 2017, in your prototype, there were two different things:
> 
> - try_remove_memory (I dunno how it was called back then) still worked
>   with pages, not pfns
> - arch_memory_memory() either did not have the altmap stuff, or we were
>   not setting it properly, but I remember that in your prototype
>   you were handling vmemmap pages in free_hugepage_table()->free_pagetable()
>   being carefull to not free them.
> 
> Back then, when removing the first vmemmap backing further sections, when
> then dereferencing those sections in free_pagetable(), we would crash because
> the mapping was not there anymore.
> This cannot longer happen.

OK, it would be great to outline that in the changelog because this is
an important detail.

[...]
> > >  	const unsigned long end_pfn = start_pfn + nr_pages;
> > > -	unsigned long pfn;
> > > +	unsigned long pfn = buddy_start_pfn;
> > > +
> > > +	/*
> > > +	 * When using memmap_on_memory, the range might be unaligned as the
> > > +	 * first pfns are used for vmemmap pages. Align it in case we need to.
> > > +	 */
> > > +	VM_BUG_ON(!IS_ALIGNED(pfn, pageblock_nr_pages));
> > 
> > No this is not something VM_BUG_ON should be used for. This is perfectly
> > recoverable situation. Besides that this is a wrong layer to care. All
> > the fixup should happen up in the call chain.
> 
> This should not happen anymore as mhp_support_memmap_on_memory() does not let
> to use MHP_MEMMAP_ON_MEMORY if range is not pageblock_nr_pages.

My point was that even if this was still needed VM_BUG_ON is not the
right way to take care of it. If you have a way to gracefully handle an
unexpected input then this should always be done.

[...]
> > > +	       IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_MHP_MEMMAP_ON_MEMORY) &&
> > > +	       size == memory_block_size_bytes() &&
> > > +	       IS_ALIGNED(vmemmap_size, PMD_SIZE) &&
> > > +	       IS_ALIGNED(remaining_size, (pageblock_nr_pages << PAGE_SHIFT));
> > 
> > This is likely more complex than necessary. Is it ever possible that
> > remaining_size won't be aligned properly when vmemmap_size is PMD_SIZE
> > aligned?
> 
> Yes, on arm64 with large pages depending on HUGETLB support this can lead to
> one condition be true while the other not.

A comment would be helpful.

> > > @@ -1563,10 +1639,11 @@ static int count_system_ram_pages_cb(unsigned long start_pfn,
> > >  	return 0;
> > >  }
> > >  
> > > -int __ref offline_pages(unsigned long start_pfn, unsigned long nr_pages)
> > > +int __ref offline_pages(unsigned long start_pfn, unsigned long nr_pages,
> > > +			unsigned long nr_vmemmap_pages)
> > 
> > same concern as online pages. Nobody should really care about vmemmap
> > reserved space. Maybe the accounting (count_system_ram_pages_cb) will
> > need some compensation but I have to say I got lost in this accounting
> > wrt to memory hotplugged memory. Where do we account hotadded memory to
> > system_ram_pages?
> 
> Quick summary of account:
> 
> - online_pages()->move_pfn_range_to_zone(): Accounts for node/zone's spanned pages
> - online_pages()->zone->present_pages += nr_pages;
> - zone->zone_pgdat->node_present_pages += nr_pages;
> - online_pages()->online_pages_range()->generic_online_page()->totalram_pages_add():
>   Accounts for totalram_pages

these should account vmemmap pages as well. Although I do not why it
would be a big problem to leave those out. Anyway, it should be quite
straightforward to account them at the time when the vmemmap space is
reserved as already mentioned above.

> - online_pages()->adjust_managed_page_count(): Accounts for zone->managed_pages

these are only managed by the allocator so vmemmap pages are off the
table.
-- 
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs