Re: [PATCH V7 2/2] mm: shmem: implement POSIX_FADV_[WILL|DONT]NEED for shmem

[Minchan Kim]

On Tue, Feb 14, 2023 at 06:21:50PM +0530, Charan Teja Kalla wrote:
> Currently fadvise(2) is supported only for the files that doesn't
> associated with noop_backing_dev_info thus for the files, like shmem,
> fadvise results into NOP. But then there is file_operations->fadvise()
> that lets the file systems to implement their own fadvise
> implementation. Use this support to implement some of the POSIX_FADV_XXX
> functionality for shmem files.
> 
> This patch aims to implement POSIX_FADV_WILLNEED and POSIX_FADV_DONTNEED
> advices to shmem files which can be helpful for the clients who may want
> to manage the shmem pages of the files that are created through
> shmem_file_setup[_with_mnt](). One usecase is implemented on the
> Snapdragon SoC's running Android where the graphics client is allocating
> lot of shmem pages per process and pinning them. When this process is
> put to background, the instantaneous reclaim is performed on those shmem
> pages using the logic implemented downstream[3][4]. With this patch, the
> client can now issue the fadvise calls on the shmem files that does the
> instantaneous reclaim which can aid the use cases like mentioned above.
> 
> This usecase lead to ~2% reduction in average launch latencies of the
> apps and 10% in total number of kills by the low memory killer running
> on Android.
> 
> Some questions asked while reviewing this patch:
> Q) Can the same thing be achieved with FD mapped to user and use
> madvise?
> A) All drivers are not mapping all the shmem fd's to user space and want
> to manage them with in the kernel. Ex: shmem memory can be mapped to the
> other subsystems and they fill in the data and then give it to other
> subsystem for further processing, where, the user mapping is not at all
> required.  A simple example, memory that is given for gpu subsystem
> which can be filled directly and give to display subsystem. And the
> respective drivers know well about when to keep that memory in ram or
> swap based on may be a user activity.
> 
> Q) Should we add the documentation section in Manual pages?
> A) The man[1] pages for the fadvise() whatever says is also applicable
> for shmem files. so couldn't feel it correct to add specific to shmem
> files separately.
> 
> Q) The proposed semantics of POSIX_FADV_DONTNEED is actually similar to
> MADV_PAGEOUT and different from MADV_DONTNEED. This is a user facing API
> and this difference will cause confusion?
> A) man pages [2] says that "POSIX_FADV_DONTNEED attempts to free cached
> pages associated with the specified region." This means on issuing this
> FADV, it is expected to free the file cache pages. And it is
> implementation defined If the dirty pages may be attempted to writeback.
> And the unwritten dirty pages will not be freed. So, FADV_DONTNEED also
> covers the semantics of MADV_PAGEOUT for file pages and there is no
> purpose of PAGEOUT for file pages.
> 
> [1] https://linux.die.net/man/2/fadvise
> [2] https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/posix_fadvise.2.html
> [3] https://git.codelinaro.org/clo/la/platform/vendor/qcom/opensource/graphics-kernel/-/blob/gfx-kernel.lnx.1.0.r3-rel/kgsl_reclaim.c#L289
> [4] https://android.googlesource.com/kernel/common/+/refs/heads/android12-5.10/mm/shmem.c#4310
> 
> Signed-off-by: Charan Teja Kalla <quic_charante@xxxxxxxxxxx>

I am not familar with why the shmem has noop_backing_dev_info
but the below code to reclaim shmem pages and POXIS_FADV_DONTNEED
semantic looks correct for me.

Only nit is the description covers mostly DONTNEED case but not
WILLNEED case.