Re: [PATCH v10 07/10] mm: Device exclusive memory access

[Peter Xu]

On Thu, Jun 10, 2021 at 10:18:25AM +1000, Alistair Popple wrote:
> > > The main problem is split_huge_pmd_address() unconditionally calls a mmu
> > > notifier so I would need to plumb in passing an owner everywhere which could
> > > get messy.
> > 
> > Could I ask why?  split_huge_pmd_address() will notify with CLEAR, so I'm a bit
> > confused why we need to pass over the owner.
> 
> Sure, it is the same reason we need to pass it for the exclusive notifier.
> Any invalidation during the make exclusive operation will break the mmu read
> side critical section forcing a retry of the operation. The owner field is what
> is used to filter out invalidations (such as the exclusive invalidation) that
> don't need to be retried.

Do you mean the mmu_interval_read_begin|retry() calls?

Hmm, the thing is.. to me FOLL_SPLIT_PMD should have similar effect to explicit
call split_huge_pmd_address(), afaict.  Since both of them use __split_huge_pmd()
internally which will generate that unwanted CLEAR notify.

If that's the case, I think it fails because split_huge_pmd_address() will
trigger that CLEAR notify unconditionally (even if it's not a thp; not sure
whether it should be optimized to not notify at all... definitely another
story), while FOLL_SPLIT_PMD will skip the notify as it calls split_huge_pmd()
instead, who checks the pmd before calling __split_huge_pmd().

Does it also mean that if there's a real THP it won't really work?  As then
FOLL_SPLIT_PMD will start to trigger that CLEAR notify too, I think..

-- 
Peter Xu