linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v5 1/6] mm/page_idle: Add per-pid idle page tracking using virtual index

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Date:   Mon, 12 Aug 2019 10:56:20 -0400
From:   Joel Fernandes <joel@...lfernandes.org>
To:     Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>
Cc:     Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        Alexey Dobriyan <adobriyan@...il.com>,
        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,
        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 v5 1/6] mm/page_idle: Add per-pid idle page tracking
 using virtual index

On Thu, Aug 08, 2019 at 10:00:44AM +0200, Michal Hocko wrote:
> On Wed 07-08-19 17:31:05, Joel Fernandes wrote:
> > On Wed, Aug 07, 2019 at 01:58:40PM -0700, Andrew Morton wrote:
> > > On Wed, 7 Aug 2019 16:45:30 -0400 Joel Fernandes <joel@...lfernandes.org> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > On Wed, Aug 07, 2019 at 01:04:02PM -0700, Andrew Morton wrote:
> > > > > On Wed,  7 Aug 2019 13:15:54 -0400 "Joel Fernandes (Google)" <joel@...lfernandes.org> wrote:
> > > > > 
> > > > > > 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.
> > > > > 
> > > > > So is heapprofd a developer-only thing?  Is heapprofd included in
> > > > > end-user android loads?  If not then, again, wouldn't it be better to
> > > > > make the feature Kconfigurable so that Android developers can enable it
> > > > > during development then disable it for production kernels?
> > > > 
> > > > Almost all of this code is already configurable with
> > > > CONFIG_IDLE_PAGE_TRACKING. If you disable it, then all of this code gets
> > > > disabled.
> > > > 
> > > > Or are you referring to something else that needs to be made configurable?
> > > 
> > > Yes - the 300+ lines of code which this patchset adds!
> > > 
> > > The impacted people will be those who use the existing
> > > idle-page-tracking feature but who will not use the new feature.  I
> > > guess we can assume this set is small...
> > 
> > Yes, I think this set should be small. The code size increase of page_idle.o
> > is from ~1KB to ~2KB. Most of the extra space is consumed by
> > page_idle_proc_generic() function which this patch adds. I don't think adding
> > another CONFIG option to disable this while keeping existing
> > CONFIG_IDLE_PAGE_TRACKING enabled, is worthwhile but I am open to the
> > addition of such an option if anyone feels strongly about it. I believe that
> > once this patch is merged, most like this new interface being added is what
> > will be used more than the old interface (for some of the usecases) so it
> > makes sense to keep it alive with CONFIG_IDLE_PAGE_TRACKING.
> 
> I would tend to agree with Joel here. The functionality falls into an
> existing IDLE_PAGE_TRACKING config option quite nicely. If there really
> are users who want to save some space and this is standing in the way
> then they can easily add a new config option with some justification so
> the savings are clear. Without that an additional config simply adds to
> the already existing configurability complexity and balkanization.

Michal, Andrew, Minchan,

Would you have any other review comments on the v5 series? This is just a new
interface that does not disrupt existing users of the older page-idle
tracking, so as such it is a safe change (as in, doesn't change existing
functionality except for the draining bug fix).

thanks,

 - Joel