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Date:	Thu, 15 Nov 2012 19:28:20 +0800
From:	Bob Liu <lliubbo@...il.com>
To:	Wen Congyang <wency@...fujitsu.com>
Cc:	Jiang Liu <liuj97@...il.com>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Jiang Liu <jiang.liu@...wei.com>,
	Maciej Rutecki <maciej.rutecki@...il.com>,
	Jianguo Wu <wujianguo@...wei.com>,
	Chris Clayton <chris2553@...glemail.com>,
	"Rafael J. Wysocki" <rjw@...k.pl>, Mel Gorman <mgorman@...e.de>,
	Minchan Kim <minchan@...nel.org>,
	KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@...fujitsu.com>,
	Michal Hocko <mhocko@...e.cz>, linux-mm@...ck.org,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	Daniel Vetter <daniel.vetter@...ll.ch>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] mm: fix a regression with HIGHMEM introduced by changeset 7f1290f2f2a4d

On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 5:22 PM, Wen Congyang <wency@...fujitsu.com> wrote:
> Hi, Liu Jiang
>
> At 11/14/2012 10:52 PM, Jiang Liu Wrote:
>> On 11/07/2012 04:43 AM, Andrew Morton wrote:
>>> On Tue, 6 Nov 2012 09:31:57 +0800
>>> Jiang Liu <jiang.liu@...wei.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Changeset 7f1290f2f2 tries to fix a issue when calculating
>>>> zone->present_pages, but it causes a regression to 32bit systems with
>>>> HIGHMEM. With that changeset, function reset_zone_present_pages()
>>>> resets all zone->present_pages to zero, and fixup_zone_present_pages()
>>>> is called to recalculate zone->present_pages when boot allocator frees
>>>> core memory pages into buddy allocator. Because highmem pages are not
>>>> freed by bootmem allocator, all highmem zones' present_pages becomes
>>>> zero.
>>>>
>>>> Actually there's no need to recalculate present_pages for highmem zone
>>>> because bootmem allocator never allocates pages from them. So fix the
>>>> regression by skipping highmem in function reset_zone_present_pages()
>>>> and fixup_zone_present_pages().
>>>>
>>>> ...
>>>>
>>>> --- a/mm/page_alloc.c
>>>> +++ b/mm/page_alloc.c
>>>> @@ -6108,7 +6108,8 @@ void reset_zone_present_pages(void)
>>>>     for_each_node_state(nid, N_HIGH_MEMORY) {
>>>>             for (i = 0; i < MAX_NR_ZONES; i++) {
>>>>                     z = NODE_DATA(nid)->node_zones + i;
>>>> -                   z->present_pages = 0;
>>>> +                   if (!is_highmem(z))
>>>> +                           z->present_pages = 0;
>>>>             }
>>>>     }
>>>>  }
>>>> @@ -6123,10 +6124,11 @@ void fixup_zone_present_pages(int nid, unsigned long start_pfn,
>>>>
>>>>     for (i = 0; i < MAX_NR_ZONES; i++) {
>>>>             z = NODE_DATA(nid)->node_zones + i;
>>>> +           if (is_highmem(z))
>>>> +                   continue;
>>>> +
>>>>             zone_start_pfn = z->zone_start_pfn;
>>>>             zone_end_pfn = zone_start_pfn + z->spanned_pages;
>>>> -
>>>> -           /* if the two regions intersect */
>>>>             if (!(zone_start_pfn >= end_pfn || zone_end_pfn <= start_pfn))
>>>>                     z->present_pages += min(end_pfn, zone_end_pfn) -
>>>>                                         max(start_pfn, zone_start_pfn);
>>>
>>> This ...  isn't very nice.  It is embeds within
>>> reset_zone_present_pages() and fixup_zone_present_pages() knowledge
>>> about their caller's state.  Or, more specifically, it is emebedding
>>> knowledge about the overall state of the system when these functions
>>> are called.
>>>
>>> I mean, a function called "reset_zone_present_pages" should reset
>>> ->present_pages!
>>>
>>> The fact that fixup_zone_present_page() has multiple call sites makes
>>> this all even more risky.  And what are the interactions between this
>>> and memory hotplug?
>>>
>>> Can we find a cleaner fix?
>>>
>>> Please tell us more about what's happening here.  Is it the case that
>>> reset_zone_present_pages() is being called *after* highmem has been
>>> populated?  If so, then fixup_zone_present_pages() should work
>>> correctly for highmem?  Or is it the case that highmem hasn't yet been
>>> setup?  IOW, what is the sequence of operations here?
>>>
>>> Is the problem that we're *missing* a call to
>>> fixup_zone_present_pages(), perhaps?  If we call
>>> fixup_zone_present_pages() after highmem has been populated,
>>> fixup_zone_present_pages() should correctly fill in the highmem zone's
>>> ->present_pages?
>> Hi Andrew,
>>       Sorry for the late response:(
>>       I have done more investigations according to your suggestions. Currently
>> we have only called fixup_zone_present_pages() for memory freed by bootmem
>> allocator and missed HIGHMEM pages. We could also call fixup_zone_present_pages()
>> for HIGHMEM pages, but that will need to change arch specific code for x86, powerpc,
>> sparc, microblaze, arm, mips, um and tile etc. Seems a little overhead.
>>       And sadly enough, I found the quick fix is still incomplete. The original
>> patch still have another issue that, reset_zone_present_pages() is only called
>> for IA64, so it will cause trouble for other arches which make use of "bootmem.c".
>>       Then I feel a little guilty and tried to find a cleaner solution without
>> touching arch specific code. But things are more complex than my expectation and
>> I'm still working on that.
>>       So how about totally reverting the changeset 7f1290f2f2a4d2c3f1b7ce8e87256e052ca23125
>> and I will post another version once I found a cleaner way?
>
> I think fixup_zone_present_pages() are very useful for memory hotplug.
>

I might miss something, but if memory hotplug is the only user depends on
fixup_zone_present_pages().
Why not reverting the changeset 7f1290f2f2a4d2c3f1b7ce8e87256e052ca23125
And add checking to offline_pages() like:
if (zone->present_pages >= offlined_page)
        zone->present_pages -= offlined_pages;
else
        zone->present_pages = 0;

It's more simple and can minimize the effect to other parts of kernel.

> We calculate zone->present_pages in free_area_init_core(), but its value is wrong.
> So it is why we fix it in fixup_zone_present_pages().
>
> What about this:
> 1. init zone->present_pages to the present pages in this zone(include bootmem)
> 2. don't reset zone->present_pages for HIGHMEM pages
>
> We don't allocate bootmem from HIGHMEM. So its present pages is inited in step1
> and there is no need to fix it in step2.
>
> Is it OK?
>
> If it is OK, I will resend the patch for step1(the patch is from laijs).
>

-- 
Regards,
--Bob
--
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