linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v1] mm/page_alloc: drop pr_info_ratelimited() in alloc_contig

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Date:   Tue, 2 Mar 2021 09:29:18 -0800
From:   Minchan Kim <minchan@...nel.org>
To:     David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>
Cc:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-mm@...ck.org,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Oscar Salvador <osalvador@...e.de>,
        Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>,
        Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v1] mm/page_alloc: drop pr_info_ratelimited() in
 alloc_contig_range()

On Mon, Mar 01, 2021 at 04:09:45PM +0100, David Hildenbrand wrote:
> The information that some PFNs are busy is:
> a) not helpful for ordinary users: we don't even know *who* called
>    alloc_contig_range(). This is certainly not worth a pr_info.*().
> b) not really helpful for debugging: we don't have any details *why*
>    these PFNs are busy, and that is what we usually care about.
> c) not complete: there are other cases where we fail alloc_contig_range()
>    using different paths that are not getting recorded.
> 
> For example, we reach this path once we succeeded in isolating pageblocks,
> but failed to migrate some pages - which can happen easily on
> ZONE_NORMAL (i.e., has_unmovable_pages() is racy) but also on ZONE_MOVABLE
> i.e., we would have to retry longer to migrate).
> 
> For example via virtio-mem when unplugging memory, we can create quite
> some noise (especially with ZONE_NORMAL) that is not of interest to
> users - it's expected that some allocations may fail as memory is busy.
> 
> Let's just drop that pr_info_ratelimit() and rather implement a dynamic
> debugging mechanism in the future that can give us a better reason why
> alloc_contig_range() failed on specific pages.
> 
> Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
> Cc: Minchan Kim <minchan@...nel.org>
> Cc: Oscar Salvador <osalvador@...e.de>
> Cc: Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>
> Cc: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>
> Signed-off-by: David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>

I agree it's not useful to dump just range. Rather than, dump_page
would be much helpful.

Acked-by: Minchan Kim <minchan@...nel.org>