linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH RFC 2/4] mm/page_alloc: place pages to tail in __putback_isolated

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Message-ID: <20200925131948.GB3910@linux>
Date:   Fri, 25 Sep 2020 15:19:48 +0200
From:   Oscar Salvador <osalvador@...e.de>
To:     David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>
Cc:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-mm@...ck.org,
        linux-hyperv@...r.kernel.org, xen-devel@...ts.xenproject.org,
        linux-acpi@...r.kernel.org,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Alexander Duyck <alexander.h.duyck@...ux.intel.com>,
        Mel Gorman <mgorman@...hsingularity.net>,
        Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>,
        Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...el.com>,
        Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>,
        Wei Yang <richard.weiyang@...ux.alibaba.com>,
        Mike Rapoport <rppt@...nel.org>,
        Scott Cheloha <cheloha@...ux.ibm.com>,
        Michael Ellerman <mpe@...erman.id.au>
Subject: Re: [PATCH RFC 2/4] mm/page_alloc: place pages to tail in
 __putback_isolated_page()

On Wed, Sep 16, 2020 at 08:34:09PM +0200, David Hildenbrand wrote:
> __putback_isolated_page() already documents that pages will be placed to
> the tail of the freelist - this is, however, not the case for
> "order >= MAX_ORDER - 2" (see buddy_merge_likely()) - which should be
> the case for all existing users.
> 
> This change affects two users:
> - free page reporting
> - page isolation, when undoing the isolation.
> 
> This behavior is desireable for pages that haven't really been touched
> lately, so exactly the two users that don't actually read/write page
> content, but rather move untouched pages.
> 
> The new behavior is especially desirable for memory onlining, where we
> allow allocation of newly onlined pages via undo_isolate_page_range()
> in online_pages(). Right now, we always place them to the head of the
> free list, resulting in undesireable behavior: Assume we add
> individual memory chunks via add_memory() and online them right away to
> the NORMAL zone. We create a dependency chain of unmovable allocations
> e.g., via the memmap. The memmap of the next chunk will be placed onto
> previous chunks - if the last block cannot get offlined+removed, all
> dependent ones cannot get offlined+removed. While this can already be
> observed with individual DIMMs, it's more of an issue for virtio-mem
> (and I suspect also ppc DLPAR).
> 
> Note: If we observe a degradation due to the changed page isolation
> behavior (which I doubt), we can always make this configurable by the
> instance triggering undo of isolation (e.g., alloc_contig_range(),
> memory onlining, memory offlining).
> 
> Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
> Cc: Alexander Duyck <alexander.h.duyck@...ux.intel.com>
> Cc: Mel Gorman <mgorman@...hsingularity.net>
> Cc: Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>
> Cc: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...el.com>
> Cc: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>
> Cc: Wei Yang <richard.weiyang@...ux.alibaba.com>
> Cc: Oscar Salvador <osalvador@...e.de>
> Cc: Mike Rapoport <rppt@...nel.org>
> Cc: Scott Cheloha <cheloha@...ux.ibm.com>
> Cc: Michael Ellerman <mpe@...erman.id.au>
> Signed-off-by: David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>

LGTM, the only thing is the shuffe_zone topic that Wei and Vlastimil rose.
Feels a bit odd that takes precedence over something we explicitily demanded.

With the comment Vlastimil suggested:

Reviewed-by: Oscar Salvador <osalvador@...e.de>

-- 
Oscar Salvador
SUSE L3