Message-ID: <24c3606d-837a-266d-a294-7e100d1430f0@suse.cz>
Date:   Mon, 10 Jul 2017 13:11:29 +0200
From:   Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>
To:     Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>
Cc:     linux-mm@...ck.org, Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Mel Gorman <mgorman@...e.de>,
        Andrea Arcangeli <aarcange@...hat.com>,
        Reza Arbab <arbab@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
        Yasuaki Ishimatsu <yasu.isimatu@...il.com>,
        qiuxishi@...wei.com, Kani Toshimitsu <toshi.kani@....com>,
        slaoub@...il.com, Joonsoo Kim <js1304@...il.com>,
        Daniel Kiper <daniel.kiper@...cle.com>,
        Igor Mammedov <imammedo@...hat.com>,
        Vitaly Kuznetsov <vkuznets@...hat.com>,
        Wei Yang <richard.weiyang@...il.com>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Linux API <linux-api@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/2] mm, memory_hotplug: remove zone restrictions

On 07/10/2017 08:45 AM, Michal Hocko wrote:
> On Fri 07-07-17 17:02:59, Vlastimil Babka wrote:
>> [+CC linux-api]
>>
>> On 06/29/2017 09:35 AM, Michal Hocko wrote:
>>> From: Michal Hocko <mhocko@...e.com>
>>>
>>> Historically we have enforced that any kernel zone (e.g ZONE_NORMAL) has
>>> to precede the Movable zone in the physical memory range. The purpose of
>>> the movable zone is, however, not bound to any physical memory restriction.
>>> It merely defines a class of migrateable and reclaimable memory.
>>>
>>> There are users (e.g. CMA) who might want to reserve specific physical
>>> memory ranges for their own purpose. Moreover our pfn walkers have to be
>>> prepared for zones overlapping in the physical range already because we
>>> do support interleaving NUMA nodes and therefore zones can interleave as
>>> well. This means we can allow each memory block to be associated with a
>>> different zone.
>>>
>>> Loosen the current onlining semantic and allow explicit onlining type on
>>> any memblock. That means that online_{kernel,movable} will be allowed
>>> regardless of the physical address of the memblock as long as it is
>>> offline of course. This might result in moveble zone overlapping with
>>> other kernel zones. Default onlining then becomes a bit tricky but still
>>> sensible. echo online > memoryXY/state will online the given block to
>>> 	1) the default zone if the given range is outside of any zone
>>> 	2) the enclosing zone if such a zone doesn't interleave with
>>> 	   any other zone
>>>         3) the default zone if more zones interleave for this range
>>> where default zone is movable zone only if movable_node is enabled
>>> otherwise it is a kernel zone.
>>>
>>> Here is an example of the semantic with (movable_node is not present but
>>> it work in an analogous way). We start with following memblocks, all of
>>> them offline
>>> memory34/valid_zones:Normal Movable
>>> memory35/valid_zones:Normal Movable
>>> memory36/valid_zones:Normal Movable
>>> memory37/valid_zones:Normal Movable
>>> memory38/valid_zones:Normal Movable
>>> memory39/valid_zones:Normal Movable
>>> memory40/valid_zones:Normal Movable
>>> memory41/valid_zones:Normal Movable
>>>
>>> Now, we online block 34 in default mode and block 37 as movable
>>> root@...t1:/sys/devices/system/node/node1# echo online > memory34/state
>>> root@...t1:/sys/devices/system/node/node1# echo online_movable > memory37/state
>>> memory34/valid_zones:Normal
>>> memory35/valid_zones:Normal Movable
>>> memory36/valid_zones:Normal Movable
>>> memory37/valid_zones:Movable
>>> memory38/valid_zones:Normal Movable
>>> memory39/valid_zones:Normal Movable
>>> memory40/valid_zones:Normal Movable
>>> memory41/valid_zones:Normal Movable
>>
>> Hm so previously, blocks 37-41 would only allow Movable at this point, right?
> 
> yes
> 
>> Shouldn't we still default to Movable for them? We might be breaking some
>> existing userspace here.
> 
> I do not think so. Prior to this merge window f1dd2cd13c4b ("mm,
> memory_hotplug: do not associate hotadded memory to zones until online")
> we allowed only the last offline or the adjacent to existing movable
> memory block to be onlined movable. So the above wasn't possible.

Not exactly the above, but let's say 1-34 is onlined as Normal, 35-37 is
Movable. Then the only possible action before would be online 38 as
Movable? Now it defaults to Normal?

> I
> doubt we have grown a new user since the rework has been merged but if
> you think we should make sure nothing like that happens then we should
> probably merge this patch in this release cycle.

If I'm right and this is a change compared to pre-rework, then it
doesn't matter.

>> IMHO onlining new memory past existing blocks is more common use case than
>> onlining memory between two blocks that are already online?
> 
> I am not really sure. It is quite common to online and offline within an
> existing zones for the memory ballooning. I do not know what kind of
> online operation they use but using the default online operation has
> historically preserved the zone so I would be really reluctant to change
> that.

Hmm all right, ballooning...

>> I also agree with Wei Yang that it's rather fuzzy that a zone that has been
>> completely offlined will affect the defaults for the next onlining just because
>> it has some spanned range, which is however empty of actual populated memory.
> 
> I am sorry but I still do not see why. The zone is not empty. It has a
> range spanned. It just doesn't have any pages online. I really fail to
> see how that is different from zones with large offline holes.
> 
>> Maybe it would simplest for everyone to just default to Normal, except
>> movable_node? That's if we decide that the potential breakage I
>> described above is a non-issue.
> 
> This would break the usecase where the memory is onlined a certain type
> initially and the offline/online it later on demand for ballooning.
> 
> I wish this could be more clear but the default onlining has been fuzzy
> since the movable online has been introduced and it is hard to buil
> something really clear since then. The proposed semantic is the most
> clean I could come up with but I am open to any suggestions that
> wouldn't break existing usage.

OK I can live with the semantics, if we clear question of breaking
existing users.

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