linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v4 1/5] mm/page_idle: Add per-pid idle page tracking using virtual indexing

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Date:   Tue, 6 Aug 2019 10:56:05 +0200
From:   Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>
To:     "Joel Fernandes (Google)" <joel@...lfernandes.org>
Cc:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        Alexey Dobriyan <adobriyan@...il.com>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>,
        Brendan Gregg <bgregg@...flix.com>,
        Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@....com>,
        Christian Hansen <chansen3@...co.com>, dancol@...gle.com,
        fmayer@...gle.com, "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>, joelaf@...gle.com,
        Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>,
        Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>, kernel-team@...roid.com,
        linux-api@...r.kernel.org, linux-doc@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org, linux-mm@...ck.org,
        Mike Rapoport <rppt@...ux.ibm.com>, minchan@...nel.org,
        namhyung@...gle.com, paulmck@...ux.ibm.com,
        Robin Murphy <robin.murphy@....com>,
        Roman Gushchin <guro@...com>,
        Stephen Rothwell <sfr@...b.auug.org.au>, surenb@...gle.com,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>, tkjos@...gle.com,
        Vladimir Davydov <vdavydov.dev@...il.com>,
        Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>, Will Deacon <will@...nel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v4 1/5] mm/page_idle: Add per-pid idle page tracking
 using virtual indexing

On Mon 05-08-19 13:04:47, Joel Fernandes (Google) wrote:
> The page_idle tracking feature currently requires looking up the pagemap
> for a process followed by interacting with /sys/kernel/mm/page_idle.
> Looking up PFN from pagemap in Android devices is not supported by
> unprivileged process and requires SYS_ADMIN and gives 0 for the PFN.
> 
> This patch adds support to directly interact with page_idle tracking at
> the PID level by introducing a /proc/<pid>/page_idle file.  It follows
> the exact same semantics as the global /sys/kernel/mm/page_idle, but now
> looking up PFN through pagemap is not needed since the interface uses
> virtual frame numbers, and at the same time also does not require
> SYS_ADMIN.
> 
> In Android, we are using this for the heap profiler (heapprofd) which
> profiles and pin points code paths which allocates and leaves memory
> idle for long periods of time. This method solves the security issue
> with userspace learning the PFN, and while at it is also shown to yield
> better results than the pagemap lookup, the theory being that the window
> where the address space can change is reduced by eliminating the
> intermediate pagemap look up stage. In virtual address indexing, the
> process's mmap_sem is held for the duration of the access.

As already mentioned in one of the previous versions. The interface
seems sane and the usecase as well. So I do not really have high level
objections.

>From a quick look at the patch I would just object to pulling swap idle
tracking into this patch because it makes the review harder and it is
essentially a dead code until a later patch. I am also not sure whether
that is really necessary and it really begs for an explicit
justification.

I will try to go through the patch more carefully later as time allows.

> Signed-off-by: Joel Fernandes (Google) <joel@...lfernandes.org>
-- 
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs