linux-kernel - Re: [RFC PATCH 2/2] mm,page_alloc: Make alloc_contig

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Date:   Wed, 10 Feb 2021 15:36:41 +0100
From:   David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>
To:     Oscar Salvador <osalvador@...e.de>
Cc:     Mike Kravetz <mike.kravetz@...cle.com>,
        Muchun Song <songmuchun@...edance.com>,
        Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>, linux-mm@...ck.org,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH 2/2] mm,page_alloc: Make alloc_contig_range handle
 free hugetlb pages

On 10.02.21 15:24, Oscar Salvador wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 10, 2021 at 09:23:59AM +0100, David Hildenbrand wrote:
>> On 08.02.21 11:38, Oscar Salvador wrote:
>>> Free hugetlb pages are trickier to handle as to in order to guarantee
>>> no userspace appplication disruption, we need to replace the
>>> current free hugepage with a new one.
>>>
>>> In order to do that, a new function called alloc_and_dissolve_huge_page
>>> in introduced.
>>> This function will first try to get a new fresh hugetlb page, and if it
>>> succeeds, it will dissolve the old one.
>>>
>>
>> Thanks for looking into this! Can we move this patch to #1 in the series? It
>> is the easier case.
>>
>> I also wonder if we should at least try on the memory unplug path to keep
>> nr_pages by at least trying to allocate at new one if required, and printing
>> a warning if that fails (after all, we're messing with something configured
>> by the admin - "nr_pages"). Note that gigantic pages are special (below).
> 
> So, do you mean to allocate a new fresh hugepage in case we have a free
> hugetlb page within the range we are trying to offline? That makes some
> sense I guess.
> 
> I can have a look at that, and make hotplug code use the new
> alloc_and_dissolve().

Yes, with the difference that hotplug code most probably wants to 
continue even if allocation failed (printing a warning) - mimix existing 
behavior. For alloc_contig, I'd say, fail if we cannot "relocate free 
huge pages that are still required to no modify nr_pages".

alloc_and_dissolve() should only allocate a page if really required 
(e.g., not sure if we could skip allocation in some cases - like with 
surplus pages, needs some investigation), such that the admin-configured 
nr_pages stays unchanged.

-- 
Thanks,

David / dhildenb