linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] mm: thp: remove use_zero

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Date:   Mon, 23 Jul 2018 14:52:43 -0700
From:   Yang Shi <yang.shi@...ux.alibaba.com>
To:     David Rientjes <rientjes@...gle.com>
Cc:     "Kirill A. Shutemov" <kirill@...temov.name>, hughd@...gle.com,
        aaron.lu@...el.com, akpm@...ux-foundation.org, linux-mm@...ck.org,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] mm: thp: remove use_zero_page sysfs knob



On 7/23/18 1:31 PM, David Rientjes wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Jul 2018, Yang Shi wrote:
>
>> I agree to keep it for a while to let that security bug cool down, however, if
>> there is no user anymore, it sounds pointless to still keep a dead knob.
>>
> It's not a dead knob.  We use it, and for reasons other than
> CVE-2017-1000405.  To mitigate the cost of constantly compacting memory to
> allocate it after it has been freed due to memry pressure, we can either
> continue to disable it, allow it to be persistently available, or use a
> new value for use_zero_page to specify it should be persistently
> available.

My understanding is the cost of memory compaction is *not* unique for 
huge zero page, right? It is expected when memory pressure is met, even 
though huge zero page is disabled.