linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 3/4] mm: khugepaged: move mm to list tail when MADV_COLD/MADV

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Message-ID: <6e8684a5-1f71-4be6-8805-9b047a2bcb78@kernel.org>
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2025 09:58:17 +0100
From: "David Hildenbrand (Red Hat)" <david@...nel.org>
To: Vernon Yang <vernon2gm@...il.com>
Cc: akpm@...ux-foundation.org, lorenzo.stoakes@...cle.com, ziy@...dia.com,
 baohua@...nel.org, lance.yang@...ux.dev, linux-mm@...ck.org,
 linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, Vernon Yang <yanglincheng@...inos.cn>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 3/4] mm: khugepaged: move mm to list tail when
 MADV_COLD/MADV_FREE

On 12/19/25 06:29, Vernon Yang wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 18, 2025 at 10:31:58AM +0100, David Hildenbrand (Red Hat) wrote:
>> On 12/15/25 10:04, Vernon Yang wrote:
>>> For example, create three task: hot1 -> cold -> hot2. After all three
>>> task are created, each allocate memory 128MB. the hot1/hot2 task
>>> continuously access 128 MB memory, while the cold task only accesses
>>> its memory briefly andthen call madvise(MADV_COLD). However, khugepaged
>>> still prioritizes scanning the cold task and only scans the hot2 task
>>> after completing the scan of the cold task.
>>>
>>> So if the user has explicitly informed us via MADV_COLD/FREE that this
>>> memory is cold or will be freed, it is appropriate for khugepaged to
>>> scan it only at the latest possible moment, thereby avoiding unnecessary
>>> scan and collapse operations to reducing CPU wastage.
>>>
>>> Here are the performance test results:
>>> (Throughput bigger is better, other smaller is better)
>>>
>>> Testing on x86_64 machine:
>>>
>>> | task hot2           | without patch | with patch    |  delta  |
>>> |---------------------|---------------|---------------|---------|
>>> | total accesses time |  3.14 sec     |  2.92 sec     | -7.01%  |
>>> | cycles per access   |  4.91         |  2.07         | -57.84% |
>>> | Throughput          |  104.38 M/sec |  112.12 M/sec | +7.42%  |
>>> | dTLB-load-misses    |  288966432    |  1292908      | -99.55% |
>>>
>>> Testing on qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm:
>>>
>>> | task hot2           | without patch | with patch    |  delta  |
>>> |---------------------|---------------|---------------|---------|
>>> | total accesses time |  3.35 sec     |  2.96 sec     | -11.64% |
>>> | cycles per access   |  7.23         |  2.12         | -70.68% |
>>> | Throughput          |  97.88 M/sec  |  110.76 M/sec | +13.16% |
>>> | dTLB-load-misses    |  237406497    |  3189194      | -98.66% |
>>
>> Again, I also don't like that because you make assumptions on a full process
>> based on some part of it's address space.
>>
>> E.g., if a library issues a MADV_COLD on some part of the memory the library
>> manages, why should the remaining part of the process suffer as well?
> 
> Yes, you make a good point, thanks!
> 
>> This seems to be an heuristic focused on some specific workloads, no?
> 
> Right.
> 
> Could we use the VM_NOHUGEPAGE flag to indicate that this region should
> not be collapsed, so that khugepaged can simply skip this VMA during
> scanning? This way, it won't affect the remaining part of the task's
> memory regions.

I thought we would skip these regions already properly in khugeapged, or 
maybe I misunderstood your question.

-- 
Cheers

David