Date:   Wed, 31 Jul 2019 15:25:34 +0200
From:   Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>
To:     David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>
Cc:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-mm@...ck.org,
        Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        "Rafael J. Wysocki" <rafael@...nel.org>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Pavel Tatashin <pasha.tatashin@...een.com>,
        Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@...el.com>,
        Oscar Salvador <osalvador@...e.de>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v1] drivers/base/memory.c: Don't store end_section_nr in
 memory blocks

On Wed 31-07-19 15:12:12, David Hildenbrand wrote:
> On 31.07.19 14:43, Michal Hocko wrote:
> > On Wed 31-07-19 14:22:13, David Hildenbrand wrote:
> >> Each memory block spans the same amount of sections/pages/bytes. The size
> >> is determined before the first memory block is created. No need to store
> >> what we can easily calculate - and the calculations even look simpler now.
> > 
> > While this cleanup helps a bit, I am not sure this is really worth
> > bothering. I guess we can agree when I say that the memblock interface
> > is suboptimal (to put it mildly).  Shouldn't we strive for making it
> > a real hotplug API in the future? What do I mean by that? Why should
> > be any memblock fixed in size? Shouldn't we have use hotplugable units
> > instead (aka pfn range that userspace can work with sensibly)? Do we
> > know of any existing userspace that would depend on the current single
> > section res. 2GB sized memblocks?
> 
> Short story: It is already ABI (e.g.,
> /sys/devices/system/memory/block_size_bytes) - around since 2005 (!) -
> since we had memory block devices.
> 
> I suspect that it is mainly manually used. But I might be wrong.

Any pointer to the real userspace depending on it? Most usecases I am
aware of rely on udev events and either onlining or offlining the memory
in the handler.

I know we have documented this as an ABI and it is really _sad_ that
this ABI didn't get through normal scrutiny any user visible interface
should go through but these are sins of the past...

> Long story:
> 
> How would you want to number memory blocks? At least no longer by phys
> index. For now, memory blocks are ordered and numbered by their block id.

memory_${mem_section_nr_of_start_pfn}

> Admins might want to online parts of a DIMM MOVABLE/NORMAL, to more
> reliably use huge pages but still have enough space for kernel memory
> (e.g., page tables). They might like that a DIMM is actually a set of
> memory blocks instead of one big chunk.

They might. Do they though? There are many theoretical usecases but
let's face it, there is a cost given to the current state. E.g. the
number of memblock directories is already quite large on machines with a
lot of memory even though they use large blocks. That has negative
implications already (e.g. the number of events you get, any iteration
on the /sys etc.). Also 2G memblocks are quite arbitrary and they
already limit the above usecase some, right?

> IOW: You can consider it a restriction to add e.g., DIMMs only in one
> bigger chunks.
> 
> > 
> > All that being said, I do not oppose to the patch but can we start
> > thinking about the underlying memblock limitations rather than micro
> > cleanups?
> 
> I am pro cleaning up what we have right now, not expect it to eventually
> change some-when in the future. (btw, I highly doubt it will change)

I do agree, but having the memblock fixed size doesn't really go along
with variable memblock size if we ever go there. But as I've said I am
not really against the patch.
-- 
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs

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