Re: [RFC PATCH 1/5] mm: intorduce __GFP_UNMAPPED and unmapped_alloc()

[Michal Hocko]

On Wed 08-03-23 11:41:02, Mike Rapoport wrote:
> From: "Mike Rapoport (IBM)" <rppt@xxxxxxxxxx>
> 
> When set_memory or set_direct_map APIs used to change attribute or
> permissions for chunks of several pages, the large PMD that maps these
> pages in the direct map must be split. Fragmenting the direct map in such
> manner causes TLB pressure and, eventually, performance degradation.
> 
> To avoid excessive direct map fragmentation, add ability to allocate
> "unmapped" pages with __GFP_UNMAPPED flag that will cause removal of the
> allocated pages from the direct map and use a cache of the unmapped pages.
> 
> This cache is replenished with higher order pages with preference for
> PMD_SIZE pages when possible so that there will be fewer splits of large
> pages in the direct map.
> 
> The cache is implemented as a buddy allocator, so it can serve high order
> allocations of unmapped pages.

Why do we need a dedicated gfp flag for all this when a dedicated
allocator is used anyway. What prevents users to call unmapped_pages_{alloc,free}?
-- 
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs