Re: [PATCH v2] kernel/resource: Fix locking in request_free_mem_region

[Alistair Popple]

On Tuesday, 30 March 2021 8:13:32 PM AEDT David Hildenbrand wrote:
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> 
> 
> On 29.03.21 03:37, Alistair Popple wrote:
> > On Friday, 26 March 2021 7:57:51 PM AEDT David Hildenbrand wrote:
> >> On 26.03.21 02:20, Alistair Popple wrote:
> >>> request_free_mem_region() is used to find an empty range of physical
> >>> addresses for hotplugging ZONE_DEVICE memory. It does this by iterating
> >>> over the range of possible addresses using region_intersects() to see if
> >>> the range is free.
> >>
> >> Just a high-level question: how does this iteract with memory
> >> hot(un)plug? IOW, how defines and manages the "range of possible
> >> addresses" ?
> >
> > Both the driver and the maximum physical address bits available define the
> > range of possible addresses for device private memory. From
> > __request_free_mem_region():
> >
> > end = min_t(unsigned long, base->end, (1UL << MAX_PHYSMEM_BITS) - 1);
> > addr = end - size + 1UL;
> >
> > There is no lower address range bound here so it is effectively zero. The 
code
> > will try to allocate the highest possible physical address first and 
continue
> > searching down for a free block. Does that answer your question?
> 
> Oh, sorry, the fist time I had a look I got it wrong - I thought (1UL <<
> MAX_PHYSMEM_BITS) would be the lower address limit. That looks indeed
> problematic to me.
> 
> You might end up reserving an iomem region that could be used e.g., by
> memory hotplug code later. If someone plugs a DIMM or adds memory via
> different approaches (virtio-mem), memory hotplug (via add_memory())
> would fail.
> 
> You never should be touching physical memory area reserved for memory
> hotplug, i.e., via SRAT.
> 
> What is the expectation here?

Most drivers call request_free_mem_region() with iomem_resource as the base. 
So zone device private pages currently tend to get allocated from the top of 
that.

By definition ZONE_DEVICE private pages are unaddressable from the CPU. So in 
terms of expectation I think all that is really required for ZONE_DEVICE 
private pages (at least for Nouveau) is a valid range of physical addresses 
that allow page_to_pfn() and pfn_to_page() to work correctly. To make this 
work drivers add the pages via memremap_pages() -> pagemap_range() -> 
add_pages().

 - Alistair

> --
> Thanks,
> 
> David / dhildenb
>