linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v7 03/14] mm: Introduce memfile

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Message-ID: <YvPC87FMgF7uac7z@google.com>
Date:   Wed, 10 Aug 2022 14:38:43 +0000
From:   Sean Christopherson <seanjc@...gle.com>
To:     David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>
Cc:     Chao Peng <chao.p.peng@...ux.intel.com>, kvm@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-mm@...ck.org,
        linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org, linux-api@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-doc@...r.kernel.org, qemu-devel@...gnu.org,
        linux-kselftest@...r.kernel.org,
        Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@...hat.com>,
        Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>,
        Vitaly Kuznetsov <vkuznets@...hat.com>,
        Wanpeng Li <wanpengli@...cent.com>,
        Jim Mattson <jmattson@...gle.com>,
        Joerg Roedel <joro@...tes.org>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>, Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>,
        x86@...nel.org, "H . Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>,
        Hugh Dickins <hughd@...gle.com>,
        Jeff Layton <jlayton@...nel.org>,
        "J . Bruce Fields" <bfields@...ldses.org>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Shuah Khan <shuah@...nel.org>, Mike Rapoport <rppt@...nel.org>,
        Steven Price <steven.price@....com>,
        "Maciej S . Szmigiero" <mail@...iej.szmigiero.name>,
        Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>,
        Vishal Annapurve <vannapurve@...gle.com>,
        Yu Zhang <yu.c.zhang@...ux.intel.com>,
        "Kirill A . Shutemov" <kirill.shutemov@...ux.intel.com>,
        luto@...nel.org, jun.nakajima@...el.com, dave.hansen@...el.com,
        ak@...ux.intel.com, aarcange@...hat.com, ddutile@...hat.com,
        dhildenb@...hat.com, Quentin Perret <qperret@...gle.com>,
        Michael Roth <michael.roth@....com>, mhocko@...e.com,
        Muchun Song <songmuchun@...edance.com>,
        Will Deacon <will@...nel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v7 03/14] mm: Introduce memfile_notifier

+Will

On Wed, Aug 10, 2022, David Hildenbrand wrote:
> On 10.08.22 11:22, Chao Peng wrote:
> > On Fri, Aug 05, 2022 at 03:22:58PM +0200, David Hildenbrand wrote:
> >> On 06.07.22 10:20, Chao Peng wrote:
> >>> This patch introduces memfile_notifier facility so existing memory file
> >>> subsystems (e.g. tmpfs/hugetlbfs) can provide memory pages to allow a
> >>> third kernel component to make use of memory bookmarked in the memory
> >>> file and gets notified when the pages in the memory file become
> >>> invalidated.
> >>
> >> Stupid question, but why is this called "memfile_notifier" and not
> >> "memfd_notifier". We're only dealing with memfd's after all ... which
> >> are anonymous files essentially. Or what am I missing? Are there any
> >> other plans for fs than plain memfd support that I am not aware of?
> > 
> > There were some discussions on this in v3.
> >   https://lkml.org/lkml/2021/12/28/484
> > Sean commented it's OK to abstract it from memfd but he also wants the
> > kAPI (name) should not bind to memfd to make room for future non-memfd
> > usages.
> 
> Sorry, but how is "memfile" any better? memfd abstracted to memfile?! :)

FWIW, I don't really like the memfile name either.

> I understand Sean's suggestion about abstracting, but if the new name
> makes it harder to grasp and there isn't really an alternative to memfd
> in sight, I'm not so sure I enjoy the tried abstraction here.

ARM's pKVM implementation is potentially (hopefully) going to switch to this API
(as a consumer) sooner than later.  If they anticipate being able to use memfd,
then there's unlikely to be a second backing type any time soon.

Quentin, Will?
 
> Otherwise we'd have to get creative now and discuss something like
> "file_population_notifer" or "mapping_population_notifer" and I am not
> sure that our time is well spent doing so right now.
> 
> ... as this is kernel-internal, we can always adjust the name as we
> please later, once we *actually* now what the abstraction should be.
> Until then I'd suggest to KIS and soft-glue this to memfd.
> 
> Or am I missing something important?

I don't think you're missing anything.  I'd still prefer a name that doesn't couple
KVM to memfd, but it's not a sticking point, and I've never been able to come up
with a better name...

With a little bit of cleverness I think we can keep the coupling in KVM to a
minimum, which is what I really care about.