linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v4 3/5] [RFC] arm64: Add support for idle bit in swap PTE

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Message-ID: <20190806104755.GR11812@dhcp22.suse.cz>
Date:   Tue, 6 Aug 2019 12:47:55 +0200
From:   Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>
To:     Joel Fernandes <joel@...lfernandes.org>
Cc:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, Robin Murphy <robin.murphy@....com>,
        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>,
        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,
        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 3/5] [RFC] arm64: Add support for idle bit in swap PTE

On Tue 06-08-19 06:36:27, Joel Fernandes wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 06, 2019 at 10:42:03AM +0200, Michal Hocko wrote:
> > On Mon 05-08-19 13:04:49, Joel Fernandes (Google) wrote:
> > > This bit will be used by idle page tracking code to correctly identify
> > > if a page that was swapped out was idle before it got swapped out.
> > > Without this PTE bit, we lose information about if a page is idle or not
> > > since the page frame gets unmapped.
> > 
> > And why do we need that? Why cannot we simply assume all swapped out
> > pages to be idle? They were certainly idle enough to be reclaimed,
> > right? Or what does idle actualy mean here?
> 
> Yes, but other than swapping, in Android a page can be forced to be swapped
> out as well using the new hints that Minchan is adding?

Yes and that is effectivelly making them idle, no?

> Also, even if they were idle enough to be swapped, there is a chance that they
> were marked as idle and *accessed* before the swapping. Due to swapping, the
> "page was accessed since we last marked it as idle" information is lost. I am
> able to verify this.
> 
> Idle in this context means the same thing as in page idle tracking terms, the
> page was not accessed by userspace since we last marked it as idle (using
> /proc/<pid>/page_idle).

Please describe a usecase and why that information might be useful.

-- 
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs