Re:[PATCH v3 0/5] ksm: support tracking KSM-placed zero-pages

From: xu xin
Date: Sun Oct 23 2022 - 23:07:54 EST


>
>>>> A full description of the real-world end-user operational benefits of
>>>> these changes would help, please.
>>>>
>>>
>>> The core idea of this patch set is to enable users to perceive the number of any
>>> pages merged by KSM, regardless of whether use_zero_page switch has been turned
>>> on, so that users can know how much free memory increase is really due to their
>>> madvise(MERGEABLE) actions.
>>
>> OK, thanks.
>>
>>> The motivation for me to do this is that when I do
>>> an application optimization of KSM on embedded Linux for 5G platform, I find
>>> that ksm_merging_pages of some process becomes very small(but used to be large),
>>> which led me to think that there was any problem with the application KSM-madvise
>>> strategy, but in fact, it was only because use_zero_pages is on.
>>
>> Please expand on the above motivation and experience, and include it in
>> the [0/n] changelog. But let's leave it a few days to see if there's
>> additional reviewer input.
>>
>
>I just posted a selftest:
>
>https://lore.kernel.org/all/20221021101141.84170-5-david@xxxxxxxxxx/T/#u
>
>That could (should) be extended to test if unmerging works as expected.
>

Yes. As you said, these selftests can be extended to test if unsharing KSM-placed
zero pages works as expected, and I'm happy to do the extending after they are merged.

>
>Having that said, I think we really want a second pair of (KSM-expert)
>eyes on these changes before moving forward with them.

OK, don't worry. Let it be reviewed for a more time, so as to absorb more views later.
If necessary, I will resend the patches to adjust to break_ksm()'s changes.