linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH V3 0/4] Define coherent device memory node

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Date:   Wed, 22 Feb 2017 17:54:24 +0100
From:   Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>
To:     Jerome Glisse <jglisse@...hat.com>
Cc:     Anshuman Khandual <khandual@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
        Mel Gorman <mgorman@...e.de>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-mm@...ck.org, vbabka@...e.cz, minchan@...nel.org,
        aneesh.kumar@...ux.vnet.ibm.com, bsingharora@...il.com,
        srikar@...ux.vnet.ibm.com, haren@...ux.vnet.ibm.com,
        dave.hansen@...el.com, dan.j.williams@...el.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH V3 0/4] Define coherent device memory node

On Wed 22-02-17 09:59:15, Jerome Glisse wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 22, 2017 at 10:29:21AM +0100, Michal Hocko wrote:
> > On Tue 21-02-17 18:39:17, Anshuman Khandual wrote:
> > > On 02/17/2017 07:02 PM, Mel Gorman wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
> > [...]
> > > These are the reasons which prohibit the use of HMM for coherent
> > > addressable device memory purpose.
> > > 
> > [...]
> > > (3) Application cannot directly allocate into device memory from user
> > > space using existing memory related system calls like mmap() and mbind()
> > > as the device memory hides away in ZONE_DEVICE.
> > 
> > Why cannot the application simply use mmap on the device file?
> 
> This has been said before but we want to share the address space this do
> imply that you can not rely on special allocator. For instance you can
> have an application that use a library and the library use the GPU but
> the application is un-aware and those any data provided by the application
> to the library will come from generic malloc (mmap anonymous or from
> regular file).
> 
> Currently what happens is that the library reallocate memory through
> special allocator and copy thing. Not only does this waste memory (the
> new memory is often regular memory too) but you also have to paid the
> cost of copying GB of data.
> 
> Last bullet to this, is complex data structure (list, tree, ...) having
> to go through special allocator means you have re-build the whole structure
> with the duplicated memory.
> 
> 
> Allowing to directly use memory allocated from malloc (mmap anonymous
> private or from a regular file) avoid the copy operation and the complex
> duplication of data structure. Moving the dataset to the GPU is then a
> simple memory migration from kernel point of view.
> 
> This is share address space without special allocator is mandatory in new
> or future standard such as OpenCL, Cuda, C++, OpenMP, ... some other OS
> already have this and the industry want it. So the questions is do we
> want to support any of this, do we care about GPGPU ?
> 
> 
> I believe we want to support all this new standard but maybe i am the
> only one.
> 
> In HMM case i have the extra painfull fact that the device memory is
> not accessible by the CPU. For CDM on contrary, CPU can access in a
> cache coherent way the device memory and all operation behave as regular
> memory (thing like atomic operation for instance).
> 
> 
> I hope this clearly explain why we can no longer rely on dedicated/
> specialized memory allocator.

Yes this clarifies this point. Thanks for the information which would be
really helpful in the initial description. Maybe I've just missed it,
though.
-- 
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs