linux-kernel - Re: THP backed thread stacks

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Date:   Wed, 8 Mar 2023 11:02:06 -0800
From:   Mike Kravetz <mike.kravetz@...cle.com>
To:     Peter Xu <peterx@...hat.com>, David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>,
        Rik van Riel <riel@...riel.com>,
        Mike Rapoport <rppt@...nel.org>
Cc:     linux-mm@...ck.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: THP backed thread stacks

On 03/06/23 16:40, Mike Kravetz wrote:
> On 03/06/23 19:15, Peter Xu wrote:
> > On Mon, Mar 06, 2023 at 03:57:30PM -0800, Mike Kravetz wrote:
> > > 
> > > Just wondering if there is anything better or more selective that can be
> > > done?  Does it make sense to have THP backed stacks by default?  If not,
> > > who would be best at disabling?  A couple thoughts:
> > > - The kernel could disable huge pages on stacks.  libpthread/glibc pass
> > >   the unused flag MAP_STACK.  We could key off this and disable huge pages.
> > >   However, I'm sure there is somebody somewhere today that is getting better
> > >   performance because they have huge pages backing their stacks.
> > > - We could push this to glibc/libpthreads and have them use
> > >   MADV_NOHUGEPAGE on thread stacks.  However, this also has the potential
> > >   of regressing performance if somebody somewhere is getting better
> > >   performance due to huge pages.
> > 
> > Yes it seems it's always not safe to change a default behavior to me.
> > 
> > For stack I really can't tell why it must be different here.  I assume the
> > problem is the wasted space and it exaggerates easily with N-threads.  But
> > IIUC it'll be the same as thp to normal memories iiuc, e.g., there can be a
> > per-thread mmap() of 2MB even if only 4K is used each, then if such mmap()
> > is populated by THP for each thread there'll also be a huge waste.

I may be alone in my thinking here, but it seems that stacks by their nature
are not generally good candidates for huge pages.  I am just thinking about
the 'normal' use case where stacks contain local function data and arguments.
Am I missing something, or are huge pages really a benefit here?

Of course, I can imagine some thread with a large amount of frequently
accessed data allocated on it's stack which could benefit from huge
pages.  But, this seems to be an exception rather than the rule.

I understand the argument that THP always means always and everywhere.
It just seems that thread stacks may be 'special enough' to consider
disabling by default.
-- 
Mike Kravetz