linux-kernel - [PATCH v9 5/7] x86/clear_page: Introduce clear

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Message-Id: <20251121202352.494700-6-ankur.a.arora@oracle.com>
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2025 12:23:50 -0800
From: Ankur Arora <ankur.a.arora@...cle.com>
To: linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-mm@...ck.org, x86@...nel.org
Cc: akpm@...ux-foundation.org, david@...nel.org, bp@...en8.de,
        dave.hansen@...ux.intel.com, hpa@...or.com, mingo@...hat.com,
        mjguzik@...il.com, luto@...nel.org, peterz@...radead.org,
        tglx@...utronix.de, willy@...radead.org, raghavendra.kt@....com,
        boris.ostrovsky@...cle.com, konrad.wilk@...cle.com,
        ankur.a.arora@...cle.com
Subject: [PATCH v9 5/7] x86/clear_page: Introduce clear_pages()

Performance when clearing with string instructions (x86-64-stosq and
similar) can vary significantly based on the chunk-size used.

  $ perf bench mem memset -k 4KB -s 4GB -f x86-64-stosq
  # Running 'mem/memset' benchmark:
  # function 'x86-64-stosq' (movsq-based memset() in arch/x86/lib/memset_64.S)
  # Copying 4GB bytes ...

      13.748208 GB/sec

  $ perf bench mem memset -k 2MB -s 4GB -f x86-64-stosq
  # Running 'mem/memset' benchmark:
  # function 'x86-64-stosq' (movsq-based memset() in
  # arch/x86/lib/memset_64.S)
  # Copying 4GB bytes ...

      15.067900 GB/sec

  $ perf bench mem memset -k 1GB -s 4GB -f x86-64-stosq
  # Running 'mem/memset' benchmark:
  # function 'x86-64-stosq' (movsq-based memset() in arch/x86/lib/memset_64.S)
  # Copying 4GB bytes ...

      38.104311 GB/sec

(Both on AMD Milan.)

With a change in chunk-size from 4KB to 1GB, we see the performance go
from 13.7 GB/sec to 38.1 GB/sec. For the chunk-size of 2MB the change isn't
quite as drastic but it is worth adding a clear_page() variant that can
handle contiguous page-extents.

Signed-off-by: Ankur Arora <ankur.a.arora@...cle.com>
Tested-by: Raghavendra K T <raghavendra.kt@....com>
---

Notes:
    - get rid of ARCH_PAGE_CONTIG_NR. Subsequent patches add this
      constant (which was relevant for cooperative preemption models)
      to common code.

 arch/x86/include/asm/page_64.h | 17 ++++++++++++-----
 1 file changed, 12 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/arch/x86/include/asm/page_64.h b/arch/x86/include/asm/page_64.h
index 6157bf46590e..043e57c4ad12 100644
--- a/arch/x86/include/asm/page_64.h
+++ b/arch/x86/include/asm/page_64.h
@@ -44,8 +44,9 @@ void __clear_pages_unrolled(void *page);
 KCFI_REFERENCE(__clear_pages_unrolled);
 
 /**
- * clear_page() - clear a page using a kernel virtual address.
- * @addr: address of kernel page
+ * clear_pages() - clear a page range using a kernel virtual address.
+ * @addr: start address of kernel page range
+ * @npages: number of pages
  *
  * Switch between three implementations of page clearing based on CPU
  * capabilities:
@@ -66,11 +67,11 @@ KCFI_REFERENCE(__clear_pages_unrolled);
  *
  * Does absolutely no exception handling.
  */
-static inline void clear_page(void *addr)
+static inline void clear_pages(void *addr, unsigned int npages)
 {
-	u64 len = PAGE_SIZE;
+	u64 len = npages * PAGE_SIZE;
 	/*
-	 * Clean up KMSAN metadata for the page being cleared. The assembly call
+	 * Clean up KMSAN metadata for the pages being cleared. The assembly call
 	 * below clobbers @addr, so we perform unpoisoning before it.
 	 */
 	kmsan_unpoison_memory(addr, len);
@@ -81,6 +82,12 @@ static inline void clear_page(void *addr)
 			: "a" (0)
 			: "cc", "memory");
 }
+#define clear_pages clear_pages
+
+static inline void clear_page(void *addr)
+{
+	clear_pages(addr, 1);
+}
 
 void copy_page(void *to, void *from);
 KCFI_REFERENCE(copy_page);
-- 
2.31.1