Message-ID: <eab52820-813f-4137-b664-c79ba8b453b7@nvidia.com>
Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2025 11:47:10 +1000
From: Balbir Singh <balbirs@...dia.com>
To: Zi Yan <ziy@...dia.com>
Cc: linux-mm@...ck.org, akpm@...ux-foundation.org,
 linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, Karol Herbst <kherbst@...hat.com>,
 Lyude Paul <lyude@...hat.com>, Danilo Krummrich <dakr@...nel.org>,
 David Airlie <airlied@...il.com>, Simona Vetter <simona@...ll.ch>,
 Jérôme Glisse <jglisse@...hat.com>,
 Shuah Khan <shuah@...nel.org>, David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>,
 Barry Song <baohua@...nel.org>, Baolin Wang <baolin.wang@...ux.alibaba.com>,
 Ryan Roberts <ryan.roberts@....com>, Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>,
 Peter Xu <peterx@...hat.com>, Kefeng Wang <wangkefeng.wang@...wei.com>,
 Jane Chu <jane.chu@...cle.com>, Alistair Popple <apopple@...dia.com>,
 Donet Tom <donettom@...ux.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: [v1 resend 08/12] mm/thp: add split during migration support

On 7/6/25 11:34, Zi Yan wrote:
> On 5 Jul 2025, at 21:15, Balbir Singh wrote:
> 
>> On 7/5/25 11:55, Zi Yan wrote:
>>> On 4 Jul 2025, at 20:58, Balbir Singh wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 7/4/25 21:24, Zi Yan wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> s/pages/folio
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Thanks, will make the changes
>>>>
>>>>> Why name it isolated if the folio is unmapped? Isolated folios often mean
>>>>> they are removed from LRU lists. isolated here causes confusion.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Ack, will change the name
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>   *
>>>>>>   * It calls __split_unmapped_folio() to perform uniform and non-uniform split.
>>>>>>   * It is in charge of checking whether the split is supported or not and
>>>>>> @@ -3800,7 +3799,7 @@ bool uniform_split_supported(struct folio *folio, unsigned int new_order,
>>>>>>   */
>>>>>>  static int __folio_split(struct folio *folio, unsigned int new_order,
>>>>>>  		struct page *split_at, struct page *lock_at,
>>>>>> -		struct list_head *list, bool uniform_split)
>>>>>> +		struct list_head *list, bool uniform_split, bool isolated)
>>>>>>  {
>>>>>>  	struct deferred_split *ds_queue = get_deferred_split_queue(folio);
>>>>>>  	XA_STATE(xas, &folio->mapping->i_pages, folio->index);
>>>>>> @@ -3846,14 +3845,16 @@ static int __folio_split(struct folio *folio, unsigned int new_order,
>>>>>>  		 * is taken to serialise against parallel split or collapse
>>>>>>  		 * operations.
>>>>>>  		 */
>>>>>> -		anon_vma = folio_get_anon_vma(folio);
>>>>>> -		if (!anon_vma) {
>>>>>> -			ret = -EBUSY;
>>>>>> -			goto out;
>>>>>> +		if (!isolated) {
>>>>>> +			anon_vma = folio_get_anon_vma(folio);
>>>>>> +			if (!anon_vma) {
>>>>>> +				ret = -EBUSY;
>>>>>> +				goto out;
>>>>>> +			}
>>>>>> +			anon_vma_lock_write(anon_vma);
>>>>>>  		}
>>>>>>  		end = -1;
>>>>>>  		mapping = NULL;
>>>>>> -		anon_vma_lock_write(anon_vma);
>>>>>>  	} else {
>>>>>>  		unsigned int min_order;
>>>>>>  		gfp_t gfp;
>>>>>> @@ -3920,7 +3921,8 @@ static int __folio_split(struct folio *folio, unsigned int new_order,
>>>>>>  		goto out_unlock;
>>>>>>  	}
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -	unmap_folio(folio);
>>>>>> +	if (!isolated)
>>>>>> +		unmap_folio(folio);
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  	/* block interrupt reentry in xa_lock and spinlock */
>>>>>>  	local_irq_disable();
>>>>>> @@ -3973,14 +3975,15 @@ static int __folio_split(struct folio *folio, unsigned int new_order,
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  		ret = __split_unmapped_folio(folio, new_order,
>>>>>>  				split_at, lock_at, list, end, &xas, mapping,
>>>>>> -				uniform_split);
>>>>>> +				uniform_split, isolated);
>>>>>>  	} else {
>>>>>>  		spin_unlock(&ds_queue->split_queue_lock);
>>>>>>  fail:
>>>>>>  		if (mapping)
>>>>>>  			xas_unlock(&xas);
>>>>>>  		local_irq_enable();
>>>>>> -		remap_page(folio, folio_nr_pages(folio), 0);
>>>>>> +		if (!isolated)
>>>>>> +			remap_page(folio, folio_nr_pages(folio), 0);
>>>>>>  		ret = -EAGAIN;
>>>>>>  	}
>>>>>
>>>>> These "isolated" special handlings does not look good, I wonder if there
>>>>> is a way of letting split code handle device private folios more gracefully.
>>>>> It also causes confusions, since why does "isolated/unmapped" folios
>>>>> not need to unmap_page(), remap_page(), or unlock?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> There are two reasons for going down the current code path
>>>
>>> After thinking more, I think adding isolated/unmapped is not the right
>>> way, since unmapped folio is a very generic concept. If you add it,
>>> one can easily misuse the folio split code by first unmapping a folio
>>> and trying to split it with unmapped = true. I do not think that is
>>> supported and your patch does not prevent that from happening in the future.
>>>
>>
>> I don't understand the misuse case you mention, I assume you mean someone can
>> get the usage wrong? The responsibility is on the caller to do the right thing
>> if calling the API with unmapped
> 
> Before your patch, there is no use case of splitting unmapped folios.
> Your patch only adds support for device private page split, not any unmapped
> folio split. So using a generic isolated/unmapped parameter is not OK.
> 

There is a use for splitting unmapped folios (see below)

>>
>>> You should teach different parts of folio split code path to handle
>>> device private folios properly. Details are below.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> 1. if the isolated check is not present, folio_get_anon_vma will fail and cause
>>>>    the split routine to return with -EBUSY
>>>
>>> You do something below instead.
>>>
>>> if (!anon_vma && !folio_is_device_private(folio)) {
>>> 	ret = -EBUSY;
>>> 	goto out;
>>> } else if (anon_vma) {
>>> 	anon_vma_lock_write(anon_vma);
>>> }
>>>
>>
>> folio_get_anon() cannot be called for unmapped folios. In our case the page has
>> already been unmapped. Is there a reason why you mix anon_vma_lock_write with
>> the check for device private folios?
> 
> Oh, I did not notice that anon_vma = folio_get_anon_vma(folio) is also
> in if (!isolated) branch. In that case, just do
> 
> if (folio_is_device_private(folio) {
> ...
> } else if (is_anon) {
> ...
> } else {
> ...
> }
> 
>>
>>> People can know device private folio split needs a special handling.
>>>
>>> BTW, why a device private folio can also be anonymous? Does it mean
>>> if a page cache folio is migrated to device private, kernel also
>>> sees it as both device private and file-backed?
>>>
>>
>> FYI: device private folios only work with anonymous private pages, hence
>> the name device private.
> 
> OK.
> 
>>
>>>
>>>> 2. Going through unmap_page(), remap_page() causes a full page table walk, which
>>>>    the migrate_device API has already just done as a part of the migration. The
>>>>    entries under consideration are already migration entries in this case.
>>>>    This is wasteful and in some case unexpected.
>>>
>>> unmap_folio() already adds TTU_SPLIT_HUGE_PMD to try to split
>>> PMD mapping, which you did in migrate_vma_split_pages(). You probably
>>> can teach either try_to_migrate() or try_to_unmap() to just split
>>> device private PMD mapping. Or if that is not preferred,
>>> you can simply call split_huge_pmd_address() when unmap_folio()
>>> sees a device private folio.
>>>
>>> For remap_page(), you can simply return for device private folios
>>> like it is currently doing for non anonymous folios.
>>>
>>
>> Doing a full rmap walk does not make sense with unmap_folio() and
>> remap_folio(), because
>>
>> 1. We need to do a page table walk/rmap walk again
>> 2. We'll need special handling of migration <-> migration entries
>>    in the rmap handling (set/remove migration ptes)
>> 3. In this context, the code is already in the middle of migration,
>>    so trying to do that again does not make sense.
> 
> Why doing split in the middle of migration? Existing split code
> assumes to-be-split folios are mapped.
> 
> What prevents doing split before migration?
> 

The code does do a split prior to migration if THP selection fails

Please see https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20250703233511.2028395-5-balbirs@nvidia.com/
and the fallback part which calls split_folio()

But the case under consideration is special since the device needs to allocate
corresponding pfn's as well. The changelog mentions it:

"The common case that arises is that after setup, during migrate
the destination might not be able to allocate MIGRATE_PFN_COMPOUND
pages."

I can expand on it, because migrate_vma() is a multi-phase operation

1. migrate_vma_setup()
2. migrate_vma_pages()
3. migrate_vma_finalize()

It can so happen that when we get the destination pfn's allocated the destination
might not be able to allocate a large page, so we do the split in migrate_vma_pages().

The pages have been unmapped and collected in migrate_vma_setup()

The next patch in the series 9/12 (https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20250703233511.2028395-10-balbirs@nvidia.com/)
tests the split and emulates a failure on the device side to allocate large pages
and tests it in 10/12 (https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20250703233511.2028395-11-balbirs@nvidia.com/)


>>
>>
>>>
>>> For lru_add_split_folio(), you can skip it if a device private
>>> folio is seen.
>>>
>>> Last, for unlock part, why do you need to keep all after-split folios
>>> locked? It should be possible to just keep the to-be-migrated folio
>>> locked and unlock the rest for a later retry. But I could miss something
>>> since I am not familiar with device private migration code.
>>>
>>
>> Not sure I follow this comment
> 
> Because the patch is doing split in the middle of migration and existing
> split code never supports. My comment is based on the assumption that
> the split is done when a folio is mapped.
> 

Understood, hopefully I've explained the reason for the split in the middle
of migration

Thanks for the detailed review
Balbir

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