Re: [RFC PATCH 00/15] Make MAX_ORDER adjustable as a kernel boot time parameter.

[Zi Yan]

On 6 Aug 2021, at 12:32, Vlastimil Babka wrote:

> On 8/5/21 9:02 PM, Zi Yan wrote:
>> From: Zi Yan <ziy@xxxxxxxxxx>
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> This patchset add support for kernel boot time adjustable MAX_ORDER, so that
>> user can change the largest size of pages obtained from buddy allocator. It also
>> removes the restriction on MAX_ORDER based on SECTION_SIZE_BITS, so that
>> buddy allocator can merge PFNs across memory sections when SPARSEMEM_VMEMMAP is
>> set. It is on top of v5.14-rc4-mmotm-2021-08-02-18-51.
>>
>> Motivation
>> ===
>>
>> This enables kernel to allocate 1GB pages and is necessary for my ongoing work
>> on adding support for 1GB PUD THP[1]. This is also the conclusion I came up with
>> after some discussion with David Hildenbrand on what methods should be used for
>> allocating gigantic pages[2], since other approaches like using CMA allocator or
>> alloc_contig_pages() are regarded as suboptimal.
>
> I see references [1] [2] etc but no list of links at the end, did you
> forgot to include?
Ah, I missed that. Sorry.

Here are the links:

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/20200928175428.4110504-1-zi.yan@xxxxxxxx/
[2] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/e132fdd9-65af-1cad-8a6e-71844ebfe6a2@xxxxxxxxxx/
[3] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/289DA3C0-9AE5-4992-A35A-C13FCE4D8544@xxxxxxxxxx/

BTW, [3] is the performance test I did to compare MAX_ORDER=11 and MAX_ORDER=20,
which showed no performance impact of increasing MAX_ORDER.

In addition, I would like to share more detail on my plan on supporting 1GB PUD THP.
This patchset is the first step, enabling kernel to allocate 1GB pages, so that
user can get 1GB THPs from ZONE_NORMAL and ZONE_MOVABLE without using
alloc_contig_pages() or CMA allocator. The next step is to improve kernel memory
fragmentation handling for pages up to MAX_ORDER, since currently pageblock size
is still limited by memory section size. As a result, I will explore solutions
like having additional larger pageblocks (up to MAX_ORDER) to counter memory
fragmentation. I will discover what else needs to be solved as I gradually improve
1GB PUD THP support.

—
Best Regards,
Yan, Zi

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