linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] mm/vmstat: Reduce zone lock hold time when reading /proc/pagetypeinfo

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Date:   Wed, 23 Oct 2019 11:05:49 -0400
From:   Qian Cai <cai@....pw>
To:     Waiman Long <longman@...hat.com>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:     linux-mm@...ck.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        Johannes Weiner <hannes@...xchg.org>,
        Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>, Roman Gushchin <guro@...com>,
        Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>,
        Konstantin Khlebnikov <khlebnikov@...dex-team.ru>,
        Jann Horn <jannh@...gle.com>, Song Liu <songliubraving@...com>,
        Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Rafael Aquini <aquini@...hat.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] mm/vmstat: Reduce zone lock hold time when reading
 /proc/pagetypeinfo

On Wed, 2019-10-23 at 11:01 -0400, Waiman Long wrote:
> On 10/23/19 10:48 AM, Qian Cai wrote:
> > > > this still isn't a bulletproof fix.  Maybe just terminate the list
> > > > walk if freecount reaches 1024.  Would anyone really care?
> > > > 
> > > > Sigh.  I wonder if anyone really uses this thing for anything
> > > > important.  Can we just remove it all?
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > Removing it will be a breakage of kernel API.
> > 
> > Who cares about breaking this part of the API that essentially nobody will use
> > this file?
> > 
> 
> There are certainly tools that use /proc/pagetypeinfo and this is how
> the problem is found. I am not against removing it, but we have to be
> careful and deprecate it in way that minimize user impact.

What are those tools?