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Message-ID: <0E77F151-99B0-4F67-814A-4D79439C9A88@nvidia.com>
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2025 14:45:37 -0500
From: Zi Yan <ziy@...dia.com>
To: Gregory Price <gourry@...rry.net>
Cc: linux-mm@...ck.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, kernel-team@...a.com,
 akpm@...ux-foundation.org, vbabka@...e.cz, surenb@...gle.com,
 mhocko@...e.com, jackmanb@...gle.com, hannes@...xchg.org,
 richard.weiyang@...il.com, osalvador@...e.de, rientjes@...gle.com,
 david@...hat.com, joshua.hahnjy@...il.com, fvdl@...gle.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH v5] page_alloc: allow migration of smaller hugepages
 during contig_alloc

On 18 Dec 2025, at 14:08, Gregory Price wrote:

> We presently skip regions with hugepages entirely when trying to do
> contiguous page allocation.  This will cause otherwise-movable
> 2MB HugeTLB pages to be considered unmovable, and will make 1GB
> hugepages allocation less reliable on systems utilizing both.
>
> Commit 4d73ba5fa710 ("mm: page_alloc: skip regions with hugetlbfs pages
> when allocating 1G pages") skipped all HugePage containing regions
> because it can cause significant delays in 1G allocation (as HugeTLB
> migrations may fail for a number of reasons).
>
> Instead, if hugepage migration is enabled, consider regions with
> hugepages smaller than the target contiguous allocation request
> as valid targets for allocation.
>
> We optimize for the existing behavior by searching for non-hugetlb
> regions in a first pass, then retrying the search to include hugetlb
> only on failure.  This allows the existing fast-path to remain the
> default case with a slow-path fallback to increase reliability.

Why not do hugetlb search when non-hugetlb fails in pfn_range_valid_contig()
and give hugetlb_search result in an input parameter? Something like

bool pfn_range_valid_contig(..., bool *hugetlb_search_result)
{
	bool no_hugetlb = true;

	if (hugetlb_search_result)
		*hugetlb_search_result = false;
	...
	if (PageHuge(page)) {
		no_hugetlb = false;
		...
		
		if (hugetlb_search_result) {
			page = compound_head(page);
			order = compound_order(page);
			if ((order >= MAX_FOLIO_ORDER) ||
				(nr_pages <= (1 << order)))
				return false;
				
		}
    /* At this point, we have not found 1GB hugetlb */
	if (hugetlb_search_result)
			*hugetlb_search_result = true;
	return no_hugetlb;
}

That can save another scan? And caller can pass hugetlb_search_result if
they care and check its value if pfn_range_valid_contig() returns false.



>
> isolate_migrate_pages_block() has similar hugetlb filter logic, and
> the hugetlb code does a migratable check in folio_isolate_hugetlb()
> during isolation.  The code servicing the allocation and migration
> already supports this exact use case (it's just unreachable).
>
> To test, allocate a bunch of 2MB HugeTLB pages (in this case 48GB)
> and then attempt to allocate some 1G HugeTLB pages (in this case 4GB)
> (Scale to your machine's memory capacity).
>
> echo 24576 > .../hugepages-2048kB/nr_hugepages
> echo 4 > .../hugepages-1048576kB/nr_hugepages
>
> Prior to this patch, the 1GB page allocation can fail if no contiguous
> 1GB pages remain.  After this patch, the kernel will try to move 2MB
> pages and successfully allocate the 1GB pages (assuming overall
> sufficient memory is available). Also tested this while a program had
> the 2MB reservations mapped, and the 1GB reservation still succeeds.
>
> folio_alloc_gigantic() is the primary user of alloc_contig_pages(),
> other users are debug or init-time allocations and largely unaffected.
> - ppc/memtrace is a debugfs interface
> - x86/tdx memory allocation occurs once on module-init
> - kfence/core happens once on module (late) init
> - THP uses it in debug_vm_pgtable_alloc_huge_page at __init time
>
> Suggested-by: David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>
> Link: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/6fe3562d-49b2-4975-aa86-e139c535ad00@redhat.com/
> Signed-off-by: Gregory Price <gourry@...rry.net>
> ---
> v5: add fast-path/slow-path mechanism to retain current performance
>     dropped tags as this changes the behavior of the patch
>     most of the logic otherwise remains the same.
>
>  mm/page_alloc.c | 44 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++----
>  1 file changed, 40 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/mm/page_alloc.c b/mm/page_alloc.c
> index 822e05f1a964..3ddad1fca924 100644
> --- a/mm/page_alloc.c
> +++ b/mm/page_alloc.c
> @@ -7083,7 +7083,7 @@ static int __alloc_contig_pages(unsigned long start_pfn,
>  }
>
>  static bool pfn_range_valid_contig(struct zone *z, unsigned long start_pfn,
> -				   unsigned long nr_pages)
> +				   unsigned long nr_pages, bool search_hugetlb)
>  {
>  	unsigned long i, end_pfn = start_pfn + nr_pages;
>  	struct page *page;
> @@ -7099,8 +7099,30 @@ static bool pfn_range_valid_contig(struct zone *z, unsigned long start_pfn,
>  		if (PageReserved(page))
>  			return false;
>
> -		if (PageHuge(page))
> -			return false;
> +		/*
> +		 * Only consider ranges containing hugepages if those pages are
> +		 * smaller than the requested contiguous region.  e.g.:
> +		 *     Move 2MB pages to free up a 1GB range.
> +		 *     Don't move 1GB pages to free up a 2MB range.
> +		 *
> +		 * This makes contiguous allocation more reliable if multiple
> +		 * hugepage sizes are used without causing needless movement.
> +		 */
> +		if (PageHuge(page)) {
> +			unsigned int order;
> +
> +			if (!IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_ARCH_ENABLE_HUGEPAGE_MIGRATION))
> +				return false;
> +
> +			if (!search_hugetlb)
> +				return false;
> +
> +			page = compound_head(page);
> +			order = compound_order(page);
> +			if ((order >= MAX_FOLIO_ORDER) ||
> +			    (nr_pages <= (1 << order)))
> +				return false;
> +		}
>  	}
>  	return true;
>  }
> @@ -7143,7 +7165,9 @@ struct page *alloc_contig_pages_noprof(unsigned long nr_pages, gfp_t gfp_mask,
>  	struct zonelist *zonelist;
>  	struct zone *zone;
>  	struct zoneref *z;
> +	bool hugetlb = false;
>
> +retry:
>  	zonelist = node_zonelist(nid, gfp_mask);
>  	for_each_zone_zonelist_nodemask(zone, z, zonelist,
>  					gfp_zone(gfp_mask), nodemask) {
> @@ -7151,7 +7175,8 @@ struct page *alloc_contig_pages_noprof(unsigned long nr_pages, gfp_t gfp_mask,
>
>  		pfn = ALIGN(zone->zone_start_pfn, nr_pages);
>  		while (zone_spans_last_pfn(zone, pfn, nr_pages)) {
> -			if (pfn_range_valid_contig(zone, pfn, nr_pages)) {
> +			if (pfn_range_valid_contig(zone, pfn, nr_pages,
> +						   hugetlb)) {
>  				/*
>  				 * We release the zone lock here because
>  				 * alloc_contig_range() will also lock the zone
> @@ -7170,6 +7195,17 @@ struct page *alloc_contig_pages_noprof(unsigned long nr_pages, gfp_t gfp_mask,
>  		}
>  		spin_unlock_irqrestore(&zone->lock, flags);
>  	}
> +	/*
> +	 * If we failed, retry the search, but treat regions with HugeTLB pages
> +	 * as valid targets.  This retains fast-allocations on first pass
> +	 * without trying to migrate HugeTLB pages (which may fail). On the
> +	 * second pass, we will try moving HugeTLB pages when those pages are
> +	 * smaller than the requested contiguous region size.
> +	 */
> +	if (!hugetlb && IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_ARCH_ENABLE_HUGEPAGE_MIGRATION)) {
> +		hugetlb = true;
> +		goto retry;
> +	}
>  	return NULL;
>  }
>  #endif /* CONFIG_CONTIG_ALLOC */
> -- 
> 2.52.0


Best Regards,
Yan, Zi

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