Re: [PATCH v2 1/2] mm: vmalloc: implement vrealloc()

[Vlastimil Babka]

On 7/30/24 3:14 PM, Danilo Krummrich wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 30, 2024 at 02:15:34PM +0200, Vlastimil Babka wrote:
>> On 7/30/24 3:35 AM, Danilo Krummrich wrote:
>>> On Mon, Jul 29, 2024 at 09:08:16PM +0200, Danilo Krummrich wrote:
>>>> On Fri, Jul 26, 2024 at 10:05:47PM +0200, Danilo Krummrich wrote:
>>>>> On Fri, Jul 26, 2024 at 04:37:43PM +0200, Vlastimil Babka wrote:
>>>>>> On 7/22/24 6:29 PM, Danilo Krummrich wrote:
>>>>>>> Implement vrealloc() analogous to krealloc().
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Currently, krealloc() requires the caller to pass the size of the
>>>>>>> previous memory allocation, which, instead, should be self-contained.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> We attempt to fix this in a subsequent patch which, in order to do so,
>>>>>>> requires vrealloc().
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Besides that, we need realloc() functions for kernel allocators in Rust
>>>>>>> too. With `Vec` or `KVec` respectively, potentially growing (and
>>>>>>> shrinking) data structures are rather common.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Signed-off-by: Danilo Krummrich <dakr@xxxxxxxxxx>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Acked-by: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@xxxxxxx>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --- a/mm/vmalloc.c
>>>>>>> +++ b/mm/vmalloc.c
>>>>>>> @@ -4037,6 +4037,65 @@ void *vzalloc_node_noprof(unsigned long size, int node)
>>>>>>>  }
>>>>>>>  EXPORT_SYMBOL(vzalloc_node_noprof);
>>>>>>>  
>>>>>>> +/**
>>>>>>> + * vrealloc - reallocate virtually contiguous memory; contents remain unchanged
>>>>>>> + * @p: object to reallocate memory for
>>>>>>> + * @size: the size to reallocate
>>>>>>> + * @flags: the flags for the page level allocator
>>>>>>> + *
>>>>>>> + * The contents of the object pointed to are preserved up to the lesser of the
>>>>>>> + * new and old size (__GFP_ZERO flag is effectively ignored).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Well, technically not correct as we don't shrink. Get 8 pages, kvrealloc to
>>>>>> 4 pages, kvrealloc back to 8 and the last 4 are not zeroed. But it's not
>>>>>> new, kvrealloc() did the same before patch 2/2.
>>>>>
>>>>> Taking it (too) literal, it's not wrong. The contents of the object pointed to
>>>>> are indeed preserved up to the lesser of the new and old size. It's just that
>>>>> the rest may be "preserved" as well.
>>>>>
>>>>> I work on implementing shrink and grow for vrealloc(). In the meantime I think
>>>>> we could probably just memset() spare memory to zero.
>>>>
>>>> Probably, this was a bad idea. Even with shrinking implemented we'd need to
>>>> memset() potential spare memory of the last page to zero, when new_size <
>>>> old_size.
>>>>
>>>> Analogously, the same would be true for krealloc() buckets. That's probably not
>>>> worth it.
>>
>> I think it could remove unexpected bad surprises with the API so why not
>> do it.
> 
> We'd either need to do it *every* time we shrink an allocation on spec, or we
> only do it when shrinking with __GFP_ZERO flag set, which might be a bit
> counter-intuitive.

I don't think it is that much counterintuitive.

> If we do it, I'd probably vote for the latter semantics. While it sounds more
> error prone, it's less wasteful and enough to cover the most common case where
> the actual *realloc() call is always with the same parameters, but a changing
> size.

Yeah. Or with hardening enabled (init_on_alloc) it could be done always.