linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v1] mm/gup: adjust stale comment for RCU GUP-fast

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Date:   Mon, 5 Sep 2022 10:38:51 +0200
From:   David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>
To:     Aneesh Kumar K V <aneesh.kumar@...ux.ibm.com>,
        Yang Shi <shy828301@...il.com>, Peter Xu <peterx@...hat.com>
Cc:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-mm@...ck.org,
        "Kirill A . Shutemov" <kirill.shutemov@...ux.intel.com>,
        "Aneesh Kumar K . V" <aneesh.kumar@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
        Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>,
        Jerome Marchand <jmarchan@...hat.com>,
        Andrea Arcangeli <aarcange@...hat.com>,
        Hugh Dickins <hughd@...gle.com>,
        Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@...dia.com>,
        John Hubbard <jhubbard@...dia.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v1] mm/gup: adjust stale comment for RCU GUP-fast

On 04.09.22 18:52, Aneesh Kumar K V wrote:
> On 9/2/22 12:02 PM, David Hildenbrand wrote:
>> On 01.09.22 20:35, Yang Shi wrote:
>>> On Thu, Sep 1, 2022 at 11:07 AM Peter Xu <peterx@...hat.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Sep 01, 2022 at 10:50:48AM -0700, Yang Shi wrote:
>>>>> Yeah, because THP collapse does copy the data before clearing pte. If
>>>>> we want to remove pmdp_collapse_flush() by just clearing pmd, we
>>>>> should clear *AND* flush pte before copying the data IIRC.
>>>>
>>>> Yes tlb flush is still needed.  IIUC the generic pmdp_collapse_flush() will
>>>> still be working (with the pte level flushing there) but it should just
>>>> start to work for all archs, so potentially we could drop the arch-specific
>>>> pmdp_collapse_flush()s, mostly the ppc impl.
>>>
>>> I'm don't know why powperpc needs to have its specific
>>> pmdp_collapse_flush() in the first place, not only the mandatory IPI
>>> broadcast, but also the specific implementation of pmd tlb flush. But
>>> anyway the IPI broadcast could be removed at least IMO.
>>>
>>
>> pmdp_collapse_flush() is overwritten on book3s only. It either translates
>> to radix__pmdp_collapse_flush() or hash__pmdp_collapse_flush().
>>
>>
>> radix__pmdp_collapse_flush() has a comment explaining the situation:
>>
>>
>> +       /*
>> +        * pmdp collapse_flush need to ensure that there are no parallel gup
>> +        * walk after this call. This is needed so that we can have stable
>> +        * page ref count when collapsing a page. We don't allow a collapse page
>> +        * if we have gup taken on the page. We can ensure that by sending IPI
>> +        * because gup walk happens with IRQ disabled.
>> +        */
>>
>>
>> The comment for hash__pmdp_collapse_flush() is a bit more involved:
>>
>> 	/*
>> 	 * Wait for all pending hash_page to finish. This is needed
>> 	 * in case of subpage collapse. When we collapse normal pages
>> 	 * to hugepage, we first clear the pmd, then invalidate all
>> 	 * the PTE entries. The assumption here is that any low level
>> 	 * page fault will see a none pmd and take the slow path that
>> 	 * will wait on mmap_lock. But we could very well be in a
>> 	 * hash_page with local ptep pointer value. Such a hash page
>> 	 * can result in adding new HPTE entries for normal subpages.
>> 	 * That means we could be modifying the page content as we
>> 	 * copy them to a huge page. So wait for parallel hash_page
>> 	 * to finish before invalidating HPTE entries. We can do this
>> 	 * by sending an IPI to all the cpus and executing a dummy
>> 	 * function there.
>> 	 */
>>
>> I'm not sure if that implies that the IPI is needed for some other hash-magic.
>>
>> Maybe Aneesh can clarify.
>>
> 
> We still need the IPI for the hash. Another reason for architecture to override that
> function is to help them use the right page size when flushing the TLB.

Thanks for clarifying. So the radix variant wouldn't need the IPI 
anymore, once GUP-fast is handled differently, correct?

-- 
Thanks,

David / dhildenb