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

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Message-ID: <5af0e0ae-0472-45b8-a249-44b4e5239d33@kernel.org>
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2025 10:24:11 +0100
From: "David Hildenbrand (Red Hat)" <david@...nel.org>
To: Vernon Yang <vernon2gm@...il.com>, Wei Yang <richard.weiyang@...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 12/21/25 05:25, Vernon Yang wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 21, 2025 at 02:10:44AM +0000, Wei Yang wrote:
>> On Fri, Dec 19, 2025 at 09:58:17AM +0100, David Hildenbrand (Red Hat) wrote:
>>> 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.
>>>
>>
>> I think we should, but seems we didn't do this for anonymous memory during
>> khugepaged.
>>
>> We check the vma with thp_vma_allowable_order() during scan.
>>
>>    * For anonymous memory during khugepaged, if we always enable 2M collapse,
>>      we will scan this vma. Even VM_NOHUGEPAGE is set.
>>
>>    * For other cases, it looks good since __thp_vma_allowable_order() will skip
>>      this vma with vma_thp_disabled().
> 
> Hi David, Wei,
> 
> The khugepaged has already checked the VM_NOHUGEPAGE flag for anonymous
> memory during scan, as below:
> 
> khugepaged_scan_mm_slot()
>      thp_vma_allowable_order()
>          thp_vma_allowable_orders()
>              __thp_vma_allowable_orders()
>                  vma_thp_disabled() {
>                       if (vm_flags & VM_NOHUGEPAGE)
>                           return true;
>                  }
> 
> REAL ISSUE: when madvise(MADV_COLD)，not set VM_NOHUGEPAGE flag to vma,
> so the khugepaged will continue scan this vma.
> 
> I set VM_NOHUGEPAGE flag to vma when madvise(MADV_COLD), the test has
> been successful. I will send it in the next version.

No we must not do that. That's a user-space visible change. :/

-- 
Cheers

David