Message-ID: <ZomRT_PQHVMVQ_RY@cassiopeiae>
Date: Sat, 6 Jul 2024 20:47:43 +0200
From: Danilo Krummrich <dakr@...hat.com>
To: Benno Lossin <benno.lossin@...ton.me>
Cc: ojeda@...nel.org, alex.gaynor@...il.com, wedsonaf@...il.com,
	boqun.feng@...il.com, gary@...yguo.net, bjorn3_gh@...tonmail.com,
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	boris.brezillon@...labora.com, lina@...hilina.net,
	mcanal@...lia.com, zhiw@...dia.com, acurrid@...dia.com,
	cjia@...dia.com, jhubbard@...dia.com, airlied@...hat.com,
	ajanulgu@...hat.com, lyude@...hat.com, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	rust-for-linux@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 01/20] rust: alloc: add `Allocator` trait

On Sat, Jul 06, 2024 at 05:08:26PM +0000, Benno Lossin wrote:
> On 06.07.24 17:11, Danilo Krummrich wrote:
> > On Sat, Jul 06, 2024 at 01:17:19PM +0000, Benno Lossin wrote:
> >> On 06.07.24 13:05, Danilo Krummrich wrote:
> >>> On Sat, Jul 06, 2024 at 10:33:49AM +0000, Benno Lossin wrote:
> >>>> Similarly, it might also be a good idea to let the implementer specify a
> >>>> custom error type.
> >>>
> >>> Same here, why?
> >>
> >> In this case the argument is weaker, but it could allow us to implement
> >> an allocator with `Error = Infallible`, to statically guarantee
> >> allocation (e.g. when using GFP_ATOMIC). But at the moment there is no
> >> user.
> > 
> > GFP_ATOMIC can fail, I guess you mean __GFP_NOFAIL.
> > 
> > Not really sure how this would work other than with separate `alloc_nofail` and
> > `realloc_nofail` functions?
> 
> You could have an Allocator that always enables __GFP_NOFAIL, so the
> error type could be Infallible. But this doesn't seem that useful at the
> moment, so keep the AllocError as is.
> 
> >>>>> +        // SAFETY: Passing a NULL pointer to `realloc` is valid by it's safety requirements and asks
> >>>>> +        // for a new memory allocation.
> >>>>> +        unsafe { self.realloc(ptr::null_mut(), 0, layout, flags) }
> >>>>> +    }
> >>>>> +
> >>>>> +    /// Re-allocate an existing memory allocation to satisfy the requested `layout`. If the
> >>>>> +    /// requested size is zero, `realloc` behaves equivalent to `free`.
> >>>>
> >>>> This is not guaranteed by the implementation.
> >>>
> >>> Not sure what exactly you mean? Is it about "satisfy" again?
> >>
> >> If the requested size is zero, the implementation could also leak the
> >> memory, nothing prevents me from implementing such an Allocator.
> > 
> > Well, hopefully the documentation stating that `realloc` must be implemented
> > this exact way prevents you from doing otherwise. :-)
> > 
> > Please let me know if I need to document this in a different way if it's not
> > sufficient as it is.
> 
> It should be part of the safety requirements of the Allocator trait.

Makes sense, gonna add it.

> 
> >>>>> +    ///
> >>>>> +    /// If the requested size is larger than `old_size`, a successful call to `realloc` guarantees
> >>>>> +    /// that the new or grown buffer has at least `Layout::size` bytes, but may also be larger.
> >>>>> +    ///
> >>>>> +    /// If the requested size is smaller than `old_size`, `realloc` may or may not shrink the
> >>>>> +    /// buffer; this is implementation specific to the allocator.
> >>>>> +    ///
> >>>>> +    /// On allocation failure, the existing buffer, if any, remains valid.
> >>>>> +    ///
> >>>>> +    /// The buffer is represented as `NonNull<[u8]>`.
> >>>>> +    ///
> >>>>> +    /// # Safety
> >>>>> +    ///
> >>>>> +    /// `ptr` must point to an existing and valid memory allocation created by this allocator
> >>>>> +    /// instance of a size of at least `old_size`.
> >>>>> +    ///
> >>>>> +    /// Additionally, `ptr` is allowed to be a NULL pointer; in this case a new memory allocation is
> >>>>> +    /// created.
> >>>>> +    unsafe fn realloc(
> >>>>> +        &self,
> >>>>> +        ptr: *mut u8,
> >>>>> +        old_size: usize,
> >>>>
> >>>> Why not request the old layout like the std Allocator's grow/shrink
> >>>> functions do?
> >>>
> >>> Because we only care about the size that needs to be preserved when growing the
> >>> buffer. The `alignment` field of `Layout` would be wasted.
> >>
> >> In the std Allocator they specified an old layout. This is probably
> >> because of the following: if `Layout` is ever extended to hold another
> >> property that would need to be updated, the signatures are already
> >> correct.
> >> In our case we could change it tree-wide, so I guess we could fix that
> >> issue when it comes up.
> > 
> > Yes, I think so too.
> > 
> >>
> >>>>> +        layout: Layout,
> >>>>> +        flags: Flags,
> >>>>> +    ) -> Result<NonNull<[u8]>, AllocError>;
> >>>>> +
> >>>>> +    /// Free an existing memory allocation.
> >>>>> +    ///
> >>>>> +    /// # Safety
> >>>>> +    ///
> >>>>> +    /// `ptr` must point to an existing and valid memory allocation created by this `Allocator`
> >>>>> +    /// instance.
> >>>>> +    unsafe fn free(&self, ptr: *mut u8) {
> >>>>
> >>>> `ptr` should be `NonNull<u8>`.
> >>>
> >>> Creating a `NonNull` from a raw pointer is an extra operation for any user of
> >>> `free` and given that all `free` functions in the kernel accept a NULL pointer,
> >>> I think there is not much value in making this `NonNull`.
> >>
> >> I don't think that this argument holds for Rust though. For example,
> >> `KBox` contains a `Unique` that contains a `NonNull`, so freeing could
> >> just be done with `free(self.0.0)`.
> > 
> > Agreed, we can indeed make it a `&NonNull<u8>`. However, I find this a bit
> 
> I think you mean `NonNull<u8>`, right?

Yes, but I still don't see how that improves things, e.g. in `Drop` of
`KVec`:

`A::free(self.ptr.to_non_null().cast())`

vs.

`A::free(self.as_mut_ptr().cast())`

I'm not against this change, but I don't see how this makes things better.

> 
> > inconsistent with the signature of `realloc`.
> > 
> > Should we go with separate `shrink` / `grow`, `free` could be implemented as
> > shrinking to zero and allowing a NULL pointer makes not much sense.
> > 
> > But as mentioned, I'm not yet seeing the benefit of having `realloc` split into
> > `grow` and `shrink`.
> 
> I would not split it into grow/shrink. I am not sure what exactly would
> be best here, but here is what I am trying to achieve:
> - people should strongly prefer alloc/free over realloc,

I agree; the functions for that are there: `Allocator::alloc` and
`Allocator::free`.

`KBox` uses both of them, `KVec` instead, for obvious reasons, uses
`Allocator::realloc` directly to grow from zero and `Allocator::free`.

> - calling realloc with zero size should not signify freeing the memory,
>   but rather resizing the allocation to 0. E.g. because a buffer now
>   decides to hold zero elements (in this case, the size should be a
>   variable that just happens to be zero).

If a buffer is forced to a new size of zero, isn't that effectively a free?

At least that's exactly what the kernel does, if we ask krealloc() to resize to
zero it will free the memory and return ZERO_SIZE_PTR.

So, what exactly would you want `realloc` to do when a size of zero is passed
in?

> - calling realloc with a null pointer should not be necessary, since
>   `alloc` exists.

But `alloc` calls `realloc` with a NULL pointer to allocate new memory.

Let's take `Kmalloc` as example, surely I could implement `alloc` by calling
into kmalloc() instead. But then we'd have to implement `alloc` for all
allocators, instead of having a generic `alloc`.

And I wonder what's the point given that `realloc` with a NULL pointer already
does this naturally? Besides that, it comes in handy when we want to allocate
memory for data structures that grow from zero, such as `KVec`.

> 
> This is to improve readability of code, or do you find
> 
>     realloc(ptr, 0, Layout::new::<()>(), Flags(0))
> 
> more readable than
>     
>     free(ptr)

No, but that's not what users of allocators would do. They'd just call `free`,
as I do in `KBox` and `KVec`.

> 
> >>>>> +        // SAFETY: `ptr` is guaranteed to be previously allocated with this `Allocator` or NULL.
> >>>>> +        // Calling `realloc` with a buffer size of zero, frees the buffer `ptr` points to.
> >>>>> +        let _ = unsafe { self.realloc(ptr, 0, Layout::new::<()>(), Flags(0)) };
> >>>>
> >>>> Why does the implementer have to guarantee this?
> >>>
> >>> Who else can guarantee this?
> >>
> >> Only the implementer yes. But they are not forced to do this i.e.
> >> nothing in the safety requirements of `Allocator` prevents me from doing
> >> a no-op on reallocating to a zero size.
> > 
> > Ah, I see now, this is the same as your comment on the documentation of
> > `realloc`. So, this indeed just about missing a safety comment.
> > 
> >>
> >>>>> +    }
> >>>>> +}
> >>>>> --
> >>>>> 2.45.2
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> More general questions:
> >>>> - are there functions in the kernel to efficiently allocate zeroed
> >>>>   memory? In that case, the Allocator trait should also have methods
> >>>>   that do that (with a iterating default impl).
> >>>
> >>> We do this with GFP flags. In particular, you can pass GFP_ZERO to `alloc` and
> >>> `realloc` to get zeroed memory. Hence, I think having dedicated functions that
> >>> just do "flags | GFP_ZERO" would not add much value.
> >>
> >> Ah right, no in that case, we don't need it.
> >>
> >>>> - I am not sure putting everything into the single realloc function is a
> >>>>   good idea, I like the grow/shrink methods of the std allocator. Is
> >>>>   there a reason aside from concentrating the impl to go for only a
> >>>>   single realloc function?
> >>>
> >>> Yes, `krealloc()` already provides exactly the described behaviour. See the
> >>> implementation of `Kmalloc`.
> >>
> >> But `kvmalloc` does not and neither does `vmalloc`. I would prefer
> >> multiple smaller functions over one big one in this case.
> > 
> > What I forsee is that:
> > 
> >   - `alloc` becomes a `grow` from zero.
> >   - `free` becomes a `shrink` to zero.
> >   - `grow` and `shrink` become a `realloc` alias,
> >      because they're almost the same
> > 
> > Wouldn't this just put us were we already are, effectively?
> 
> We could have a NonNull parameter for realloc and discourage calling
> realloc for freeing.

But what does this get us, other than that we have to implement `alloc` and
`free` explicitly for every allocator?

Also, as mentioned above, `realloc` taking a NULL pointer for a new allocation
is useful for growing structures that start from zero, such as `KVec`.

> 
> ---
> Cheers,
> Benno
> 

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