Message-ID: <e809c355-7f3c-4c7b-acee-852d5b64d1c7@arm.com>
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2025 14:40:34 +0100
From: Ryan Roberts <ryan.roberts@....com>
To: Kalesh Singh <kaleshsingh@...gle.com>
Cc: Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>,
 Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
 David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>, Dave Chinner <david@...morbit.com>,
 Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@....com>, Will Deacon <will@...nel.org>,
 linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
 linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org, linux-mm@...ck.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH v3] mm/filemap: Allow arch to request folio size for exec
 memory

On 01/04/2025 13:55, Kalesh Singh wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 1, 2025 at 3:35 AM Ryan Roberts <ryan.roberts@....com> wrote:
>>
>> On 01/04/2025 03:19, Kalesh Singh wrote:
>>> On Sat, Mar 29, 2025 at 3:08 AM Ryan Roberts <ryan.roberts@....com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 28/03/2025 15:14, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
>>>>> On Thu, Mar 27, 2025 at 04:23:14PM -0400, Ryan Roberts wrote:
>>>>>> + Kalesh
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 27/03/2025 12:44, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
>>>>>>> On Thu, Mar 27, 2025 at 04:06:58PM +0000, Ryan Roberts wrote:
>>>>>>>> So let's special-case the read(ahead) logic for executable mappings. The
>>>>>>>> trade-off is performance improvement (due to more efficient storage of
>>>>>>>> the translations in iTLB) vs potential read amplification (due to
>>>>>>>> reading too much data around the fault which won't be used), and the
>>>>>>>> latter is independent of base page size. I've chosen 64K folio size for
>>>>>>>> arm64 which benefits both the 4K and 16K base page size configs and
>>>>>>>> shouldn't lead to any read amplification in practice since the old
>>>>>>>> read-around path was (usually) reading blocks of 128K. I don't
>>>>>>>> anticipate any write amplification because text is always RO.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Is there not also the potential for wasted memory due to ELF alignment?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I think this is an orthogonal issue? My change isn't making that any worse.
>>>>>
>>>>> To a certain extent, it is.  If readahead was doing order-2 allocations
>>>>> before and is now doing order-4, you're tying up 0-12 extra pages which
>>>>> happen to be filled with zeroes due to being used to cache the contents
>>>>> of a hole.
>>>>
>>>> Well we would still have read them in before, nothing has changed there. But I
>>>> guess your point is more about reclaim? Because those pages are now contained in
>>>> a larger folio, if part of the folio is in use then all of it remains active.
>>>> Whereas before, if the folio was fully contained in the pad area and never
>>>> accessed, it would fall down the LRU quickly and get reclaimed.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Hi Ryan,
>>>
>>> I agree this was happening before and we don't need to completely
>>> address it here. Though with the patch it's more likely that the holes
>>> will be cached. I'd like to minimize it if possible. Since this is for
>>> EXEC mappings, a simple check we could use is to limit this to the
>>> VM_EXEC vma.
>>>
>>> + if (vm_flags & VM_EXEC) {
>>> + int order = arch_exec_folio_order();
>>> +
>>> + if (order >= 0 && ((end-address)*2) >= 1<<order) { /* Fault around case */
>>
>> I think the intent of this extra check is to ensure the folio will be fully
>> contained within the exec vma? Assuming end is the VA of the end of the vma and
>> address is the VA of the fault, I don't think the maths are quite right? What's
>> the "*2" for? And you probably mean PAGE_SIZE<<order ? But this also doesn't
>> account for alignment; the folio will be aligned down to a natural boundary in
>> the file.
> 
> Hi Ryan,
> 
> Sorry for the pseudocode. You are right it should be PAGE_SIZE. *2 is
> because I missed that this isn't centered around the faulting address
> as the usual fault around logic.
> 
>>
>> But more fundamentally, I thought I suggested reducing the VMA bounds to exclude
>> padding pages the other day at LSF/MM and you said you didn't want to do that
>> because you didn't want to end up with something else mapped in the gap? So
>> doesn't that mean the padding pages are part of the VMA and this check won't help?
> 
> The intention was to check that we aren't reading past (more than we
> do today) into other subsequent segments (and holes) if the exec
> segment is small relative to 64K, in which case we fall back to the
> conventional readahead heuristics.

Gottya. I think this is probably a reasonable thing to do.

> 
>>
>>>
>>> For reference I found below (coincidentally? similar) distributions on
>>> my devices
>>>
>>> == x86 Workstation ==
>>>
>>> Total unique exec segments:   906
>>>
>>> Exec segments >= 16 KB:   663 ( 73.18%)
>>> Exec segments >= 64 KB:   414 ( 45.70%)
>>
>> What are those percentages? They don't add up to more than 100...
> 
> The percent of segments with size >=16KB/64KB of the total number of
> exec mappings. "Exec segments >= 64 KB" is also a subset of "Exec
> segments >= 16 KB" it's why they don't add up to 100.

Ahh got it.

> 
>>
>> The numbers I included with the patch are caclulated based on actual mappings so
>> if we end up with a partially mapped 64K folio (because it runs off the end of
>> the VMA) it wouldn't have been counted as a 64K contiguous mapping. So I don't
>> think this type of change would change my numbers at all.
> 
> I don't think it should affect the results much (probably only a small
> benefit from the extra preread of other segments if we aren't under
> much memory pressure).

I was referring to the my numbers that show the percentage of text mapped by
contpte, not to the performance numbers. But I agree I wouldn't expect either to
change.

> 
> Anyways I don't have a strong opinion, given that this shouldn't be an
> issue once we work out Matthew and Ted's idea for the holes. So we can
> keep it simple for now.

I'll add it in and verify it doesn't affect the numbers. I think there is a
wider decision that needs to be made below first though, so will wait for
opinions on that.

Thanks,
Ryan

> 
> Thanks,
> Kalesh
> 
>>
>>>
>>> == arm64 Android Device ==
>>>
>>> Total unique exec segments:   2171
>>>
>>> Exec segments >= 16 KB:  1602 ( 73.79%)
>>> Exec segments >= 64 KB:   988 ( 45.51%)
>>>
>>> Result were using the below script:
>>>
>>> cat /proc/*/maps | grep 'r-xp' | \
>>> awk '
>>> BEGIN { OFS = "\t" }
>>> $NF ~ /^\// {
>>> path = $NF;
>>> split($1, addr, "-");
>>> size = strtonum("0x" addr[2]) - strtonum("0x" addr[1]);
>>> print size, path;
>>> }' | \
>>> sort -u | \
>>> awk '
>>> BEGIN {
>>> FS = "\t";
>>> total_segments = 0;
>>> segs_ge_16k = 0;
>>> segs_ge_64k = 0;
>>> }
>>> {
>>> total_segments++;
>>> size = $1;
>>> if (size >= 16384) segs_ge_16k++;
>>> if (size >= 65536) segs_ge_64k++;
>>> }
>>> END {
>>> if (total_segments > 0) {
>>> percent_gt_16k = (segs_ge_16k / total_segments) * 100;
>>> percent_gt_64k = (segs_ge_64k / total_segments) * 100;
>>>
>>> printf "Total unique exec segments: %d\n", total_segments;
>>> printf "\n";
>>> printf "Exec segments >= 16 KB: %5d (%6.2f%%)\n", segs_ge_16k, percent_gt_16k;
>>> printf "Exec segments >= 64 KB: %5d (%6.2f%%)\n", segs_ge_64k, percent_gt_64k;
>>> } else {
>>> print "No executable segments found.";
>>> }
>>> }'
>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>> Kalesh talked about it in the MM BOF at the same time that Ted and I
>>>>>>> were discussing it in the FS BOF.  Some coordination required (like
>>>>>>> maybe Kalesh could have mentioned it to me rathere than assuming I'd be
>>>>>>> there?)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I was at Kalesh's talk. David H suggested that a potential solution might be for
>>>>>> readahead to ask the fs where the next hole is and then truncate readahead to
>>>>>> avoid reading the hole. Given it's padding, nothing should directly fault it in
>>>>>> so it never ends up in the page cache. Not sure if you discussed anything like
>>>>>> that if you were talking in parallel?
>>>>>
>>>>> Ted said that he and Kalesh had talked about that solution.  I have a
>>>>> more bold solution in mind which lifts the ext4 extent cache to the
>>>>> VFS inode so that the readahead code can interrogate it.
>>>>>
>>>
>>> Sorry about the hiccup in coordination, Matthew. It was my bad for not
>>> letting you know I planned to discuss it in the MM BoF. I'd like to
>>> hear Ted and your ideas on this when possible.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Kalesh
>>>
>>>>>> Anyway, I'm not sure if you're suggesting these changes need to be considered as
>>>>>> one somehow or if you're just mentioning it given it is loosely related? My view
>>>>>> is that this change is an improvement indepently and could go in much sooner.
>>>>>
>>>>> This is not a reason to delay this patch.  It's just a downside which
>>>>> should be mentioned in the commit message.
>>>>
>>>> Fair point; I'll add a paragraph about the potential reclaim issue.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>>> +static inline int arch_exec_folio_order(void)
>>>>>>>> +{
>>>>>>>> +  return -1;
>>>>>>>> +}
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> This feels a bit fragile.  I often expect to be able to store an order
>>>>>>> in an unsigned int.  Why not return 0 instead?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Well 0 is a valid order, no? I think we have had the "is order signed or
>>>>>> unsigned" argument before. get_order() returns a signed int :)
>>>>>
>>>>> But why not always return a valid order?  I don't think we need a
>>>>> sentinel.  The default value can be 0 to do what we do today.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> But a single order-0 folio is not what we do today. Note that my change as
>>>> currently implemented requests to read a *single* folio of the specified order.
>>>> And note that we only get the order we request to page_cache_ra_order() because
>>>> the size is limited to a single folio. If the size were bigger, that function
>>>> would actually expand the requested order by 2. (although the parameter is
>>>> called "new_order", it's actually interpretted as "old_order").
>>>>
>>>> The current behavior is effectively to read 128K in order-2 folios (with smaller
>>>> folios for boundary alignment).
>>>>
>>>> So I see a few options:
>>
>> Matthew,
>>
>> Did you have any thoughts on these options?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Ryan
>>
>>>>
>>>>   - Continue to allow non-opted in arches to use the existing behaviour; in this
>>>> case we need a sentinel. This could be -1, UINT_MAX or 0. But in the latter case
>>>> you are preventing an opted-in arch from specifying that they want order-0 -
>>>> it's meaning is overridden.
>>>>
>>>>   - Force all arches to use the new approach with a default folio order (and
>>>> readahead size) of order-0. (The default can be overridden per-arch). Personally
>>>> I'd be nervous about making this change.
>>>>
>>>>   - Decouple the read size from the folio order size; continue to use the 128K
>>>> read size and only allow opting-in to a specific folio order. The default order
>>>> would be 2 (or 0). We would need to fix page_cache_async_ra() to call
>>>> page_cache_ra_order() with "order + 2" (the new order) and fix
>>>> page_cache_ra_order() to treat its order parameter as the *new* order.
>>>>
>>>> Perhaps we should do those fixes anyway (and then actually start with a folio
>>>> order of 0 - which I think you said in the past was your original intention?).
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Ryan
>>>>
>>

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