linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 10/11] maps3: add /proc/kpagecount and /proc/kpageflags interfaces

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Message-Id: <1192491297.6118.129.camel@localhost>
Date:	Mon, 15 Oct 2007 16:34:57 -0700
From:	Dave Hansen <haveblue@...ibm.com>
To:	Matt Mackall <mpm@...enic.com>
Cc:	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	Rusty Russell <rusty@...tcorp.com.au>,
	Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy@...p.org>,
	David Rientjes <rientjes@...gle.com>,
	Fengguang Wu <wfg@...l.ustc.edu.cn>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 10/11] maps3: add /proc/kpagecount and /proc/kpageflags
	interfaces

On Mon, 2007-10-15 at 18:11 -0500, Matt Mackall wrote:
> > Could we just have /proc/kpagereferenced?  Is there a legitimate need
> > for other flags to be visible?
> 
> Referenced, dirty, uptodate, lru, active, slab, writeback, reclaim,
> and buddy all look like they might be interesting to me from the point
> of view of watching what's happening in the VM graphically in
> real-time.

This is true, but it forces a lot of logic from the kernel to be run in
userspace to figure out what is going on.  Looking at mainline today:

#define PG_reclaim              17      /* To be reclaimed asap */
...
#define PG_readahead            PG_reclaim /* Reminder to do async read-ahead */

All of a sudden, to figure out which flag it actually is, we need to
have all of the logic that the kernel does.  

Does this establish a fixed user<->kernel ABI that will keep us from
doing this in the future:

-#define PG_slab                  7      /* slab debug (Suparna wants this) */
+#define PG_slab                  14      /* slab debug (Suparna wants this) */

Or, even something like this:

-#define PageSlab(page)          test_bit(PG_slab, &(page)->flags)
+#define PageSlab(page)          (!PageLRU(page) && !PageHighmem(page))

If we actually had several (or even still one file) that exposed this
state, independent of the actual content of page->flags, I think we'd be
better off.  I think that's the difference between a fun, super-useful
debugging feature and one that can stay in mainline and have
applications stay using it (without breaking) for a long time.

The flags you listed are things that I would imagine will always exist,
logically.  But, we might not always have a specific page flag for pages
under writeback or in the buddy list for that matter.  PG_buddy isn't
that old.  Perhaps that would be better abstracted to something like
page_in_main_allocator().

-- Dave

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