Date:   Thu, 20 Jan 2022 20:55:12 +0100
From:   David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>
To:     Nadav Amit <nadav.amit@...il.com>
Cc:     "zhangliang (AG)" <zhangliang5@...wei.com>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Linux-MM <linux-mm@...ck.org>,
        Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        wangzhigang17@...wei.com, Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] mm: reuse the unshared swapcache page in do_wp_page

On 20.01.22 19:11, Nadav Amit wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Jan 20, 2022, at 10:00 AM, David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 20.01.22 18:48, Nadav Amit wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Jan 20, 2022, at 6:15 AM, David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 17.01.22 14:31, zhangliang (AG) wrote:
>>>>> Sure, I will do that :)
>>>>
>>>> I'm polishing up / testing the patches and might send something out for discussion shortly.
>>>> Just a note that on my branch was a version with a wrong condition that should have been fixed now.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Sorry for being late for the discussion.
>>>
>>> David, does any of it regards the lru_cache_add() reference issue that I
>>> mentioned? [1]
>>
>> No, unfortunately not in that part of my work. *Maybe* we could also try
>> to handle that reference similarly to the swapcache, but the question is
>> if we can't wait for PageAnonExclusive.
>>
>> Right now I have the following in mind to get most parts working as
>> exptected:
>>
>> 1. Optimize reuse logic for the swapcache as it seems to be easy
>> 2. Streamline COW logic and remove reuse_swap_page() -- fix the CVE for
>>   THP.
>> 3. Introduce PageAnonExclusive and allow FOLL_PIN only on
>>   PageAnonExclusive pages.
>> 4. Convert O_DIRECT to FOLL_PIN
>>
>> We will never ever have to copy a page PageAnonExclusive page in the COW
>> handler and can immediately reuse it without even locking the page. The
>> existing reuse logic is essentially then used to reset PageAnonExclusive
>> on a page (thus it makes sense to work on it) where the flag is not set
>> anymore -- or on a fresh page if we have to copy.
>>
>> That implies that all these additional references won't care if your app
>> doesn't fork() or KSM isn't active. Consequently, anything that
>> read-protects anonymous pages will work as expected and should be as
>> fast as it gets.
>>
>> Sounds good? At least to me. If only swap/migration entries wouldn't be
>> harder to handle than I'd wish, that's why it's taking a little and will
>> take a little longer.
> 
> Thanks for the quick response. I would have to see the logic to set/clear
> PageAnonExclusive to fully understand how things are handled.
> 
> BTW, I just saw this patch form PeterZ [1] that seems to be related, as
> it deals with changing protection on pinned pages.

Hi Nadav,

I'm trying to see how effective the following patch is with your forceswap.c [1] reproducer.

commit b08d494deb319a63b7c776636b960258c48775e1
Author: David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>
Date:   Fri Jan 14 09:29:52 2022 +0100

    mm: optimize do_wp_page() for exclusive pages in the swapcache
    
    Let's optimize for a page with a single user that has been added to the
    swapcache. Try removing the swapcache reference if there is hope that
    we're the exclusive user, but keep the page_count(page) == 1 check in
    place.
    
    Avoid using reuse_swap_page(), we'll streamline all reuse_swap_page()
    users next.
    
    While at it, remove the superfluous page_mapcount() check: it's
    implicitly covered by the page_count() for ordinary anon pages.
    
    Signed-off-by: David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>

diff --git a/mm/memory.c b/mm/memory.c
index f306e698a1e3..d9186981662a 100644
--- a/mm/memory.c
+++ b/mm/memory.c
@@ -3291,19 +3291,28 @@ static vm_fault_t do_wp_page(struct vm_fault *vmf)
        if (PageAnon(vmf->page)) {
                struct page *page = vmf->page;
 
-               /* PageKsm() doesn't necessarily raise the page refcount */
-               if (PageKsm(page) || page_count(page) != 1)
+               /*
+                * PageKsm() doesn't necessarily raise the page refcount.
+                *
+                * These checks are racy as long as we haven't locked the page;
+                * they are a pure optimization to avoid trying to lock the page
+                * and trying to free the swap cache when there is little hope
+                * it will actually result in a refcount of 1.
+                */
+               if (PageKsm(page) || page_count(page) > 1 + PageSwapCache(page))
                        goto copy;
                if (!trylock_page(page))
                        goto copy;
-               if (PageKsm(page) || page_mapcount(page) != 1 || page_count(page) != 1) {
+               if (PageSwapCache(page))
+                       try_to_free_swap(page);
+               if (PageKsm(page) || page_count(page) != 1) {
                        unlock_page(page);
                        goto copy;
                }
                /*
-                * Ok, we've got the only map reference, and the only
-                * page count reference, and the page is locked,
-                * it's dark out, and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it.
+                * Ok, we've got the only page reference from our mapping
+                * and the page is locked, it's dark out, and we're wearing
+                * sunglasses. Hit it.
                 */
                unlock_page(page);
                wp_page_reuse(vmf);


I added some vmstats that monitor various paths. After one run of
	./forceswap 2 1000000 1
I'm left with a rough delta (including some noise) of
	anon_wp_copy_count 1799
	anon_wp_copy_count_early 1
	anon_wp_copy_lock 983396
	anon_wp_reuse 0

The relevant part of your reproducer is

	for (i = 0; i < nops; i++) {
		if (madvise((void *)p, PAGE_SIZE * npages, MADV_PAGEOUT)) {
			perror("madvise");
			exit(-1);
		}

		for (j = 0; j < npages; j++) {
			c = p[j * PAGE_SIZE];
			c++;
			time -= rdtscp();
			p[j * PAGE_SIZE] = c;
			time += rdtscp();
		}
	}

For this specific reproducer at least, the page lock seems to be the thingy that prohibits
reuse if I interpret the numbers correctly. We pass the initial page_count() check.

Haven't looked into the details, and I would be curious how that performs with actual
workloads, if we can reproduce similar behavior.


[1] https://lkml.kernel.org/r/0480D692-D9B2-429A-9A88-9BBA1331AC3A@gmail.com

-- 
Thanks,

David / dhildenb

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