linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v4 3/4] mm: Support batched unmap for lazyfree large folios during reclamation

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Message-ID: <f1ee8679-88b4-4712-b2ed-c3eec179b430@linux.dev>
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2025 20:58:12 +0800
From: Lance Yang <lance.yang@...ux.dev>
To: David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>, Barry Song <21cnbao@...il.com>
Cc: akpm@...ux-foundation.org, baolin.wang@...ux.alibaba.com,
 chrisl@...nel.org, kasong@...cent.com, linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org,
 linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-mm@...ck.org,
 linux-riscv@...ts.infradead.org, lorenzo.stoakes@...cle.com,
 ryan.roberts@....com, v-songbaohua@...o.com, x86@...nel.org,
 ying.huang@...el.com, zhengtangquan@...o.com,
 Lance Yang <ioworker0@...il.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v4 3/4] mm: Support batched unmap for lazyfree large
 folios during reclamation



On 2025/6/25 20:09, David Hildenbrand wrote:
> On 25.06.25 13:42, Barry Song wrote:
>> On Wed, Jun 25, 2025 at 11:27 PM David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com> 
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 25.06.25 13:15, Barry Song wrote:
>>>> On Wed, Jun 25, 2025 at 11:01 PM David Hildenbrand 
>>>> <david@...hat.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> On 25.06.25 12:57, Barry Song wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Note that I don't quite understand why we have to batch the 
>>>>>>>> whole thing
>>>>>>>> or fallback to
>>>>>>>> individual pages. Why can't we perform other batches that span 
>>>>>>>> only some
>>>>>>>> PTEs? What's special
>>>>>>>> about 1 PTE vs. 2 PTEs vs. all PTEs?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> That's a good point about the "all-or-nothing" batching logic ;)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It seems the "all-or-nothing" approach is specific to the 
>>>>>>> lazyfree use
>>>>>>> case, which needs to unmap the entire folio for reclamation. If 
>>>>>>> that's
>>>>>>> not possible, it falls back to the single-page slow path.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Other cases advance the PTE themselves, while try_to_unmap_one() 
>>>>>> relies
>>>>>> on page_vma_mapped_walk() to advance the PTE. Unless we want to 
>>>>>> manually
>>>>>> modify pvmw.pte and pvmw.address outside of 
>>>>>> page_vma_mapped_walk(), which
>>>>>> to me seems like a violation of layers. :-)
>>>>>
>>>>> Please explain to me why the following is not clearer and better:
>>>>
>>>> This part is much clearer, but that doesn’t necessarily improve the 
>>>> overall
>>>> picture. The main challenge is how to exit the iteration of
>>>> while (page_vma_mapped_walk(&pvmw)).
>>>
>>> Okay, I get what you mean now.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Right now, we have it laid out quite straightforwardly:
>>>>                   /* We have already batched the entire folio */
>>>>                   if (nr_pages > 1)
>>>>                           goto walk_done;
>>>
>>>
>>> Given that the comment is completely confusing whens seeing the 
>>> check ... :)
>>>
>>> /*
>>>    * If we are sure that we batched the entire folio and cleared all 
>>> PTEs,
>>>    * we can just optimize and stop right here.
>>>    */
>>> if (nr_pages == folio_nr_pages(folio))
>>>          goto walk_done;
>>>
>>> would make the comment match.
>>
>> Yes, that clarifies it.
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> with any nr between 1 and folio_nr_pages(), we have to consider two 
>>>> issues:
>>>> 1. How to skip PTE checks inside page_vma_mapped_walk for entries that
>>>> were already handled in the previous batch;
>>>
>>> They are cleared if we reach that point. So the pte_none() checks will
>>> simply skip them?
>>>
>>>> 2. How to break the iteration when this batch has arrived at the end.
>>>
>>> page_vma_mapped_walk() should be doing that?
>>
>> It seems you might have missed the part in my reply that says:
>> "Of course, we could avoid both, but that would mean performing 
>> unnecessary
>> checks inside page_vma_mapped_walk()."
>  > > That’s true for both. But I’m wondering why we’re still doing the 
> check,
>> even when we’re fairly sure they’ve already been cleared or we’ve reached
>> the end :-)
> 
> :)
> 
>>
>> Somehow, I feel we could combine your cleanup code—which handles a batch
>> size of "nr" between 1 and nr_pages—with the
>> "if (nr_pages == folio_nr_pages(folio)) goto walk_done" check.
> 
> Yeah, that's what I was suggesting. It would have to be part of the 
> cleanup I think.
> 
> I'm still wondering if there is a case where
> 
> if (nr_pages == folio_nr_pages(folio))
>      goto walk_done;
> 
> would be wrong when dealing with small folios.

We can make the check more explicit to avoid any future trouble ;)

if (nr_pages > 1 && nr_pages == folio_nr_pages(folio))
     goto walk_done;

It should be safe for small folios.

Thanks,
Lance

> 
>> In practice, this would let us skip almost all unnecessary checks,
>> except for a few rare corner cases.
>>
>> For those corner cases where "nr" truly falls between 1 and nr_pages,
>> we can just leave them as-is—performing the redundant check inside
>> page_vma_mapped_walk().
> 
> I mean, batching mapcount+refcount updates etc. is always a win. If we 
> end up doing some unnecessary pte_none() checks, that might be 
> suboptimal but mostly noise in contrast to the other stuff we will 
> optimize out :)
> 
> Agreed that if we can easily avoid these pte_none() checks, we should do 
> that. Optimizing that for "nr_pages == folio_nr_pages(folio)" makes sense.
>