linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v5 4/5] arm64: mm: implement the architecture-specific clear_flush_young

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Message-ID: <de141225-a0c1-41fd-b3e1-bcab09827ddd@linux.alibaba.com>
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2026 09:42:12 +0800
From: Baolin Wang <baolin.wang@...ux.alibaba.com>
To: Chris Mason <clm@...a.com>
Cc: akpm@...ux-foundation.org, david@...nel.org, catalin.marinas@....com,
 will@...nel.org, lorenzo.stoakes@...cle.com, ryan.roberts@....com,
 Liam.Howlett@...cle.com, vbabka@...e.cz, rppt@...nel.org, surenb@...gle.com,
 mhocko@...e.com, riel@...riel.com, harry.yoo@...cle.com, jannh@...gle.com,
 willy@...radead.org, baohua@...nel.org, dev.jain@....com,
 linux-mm@...ck.org, linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org,
 linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH v5 4/5] arm64: mm: implement the architecture-specific
 clear_flush_young_ptes()



On 1/28/26 7:47 PM, Chris Mason wrote:
> Baolin Wang <baolin.wang@...ux.alibaba.com> wrote:
>> Implement the Arm64 architecture-specific clear_flush_young_ptes() to enable
>> batched checking of young flags and TLB flushing, improving performance during
>> large folio reclamation.
>>
>> Performance testing:
>> Allocate 10G clean file-backed folios by mmap() in a memory cgroup, and try to
>> reclaim 8G file-backed folios via the memory.reclaim interface. I can observe
>> 33% performance improvement on my Arm64 32-core server (and 10%+ improvement
>> on my X86 machine). Meanwhile, the hotspot folio_check_references() dropped
>> from approximately 35% to around 5%.
> 
> Hi everyone, I ran mm-new through my AI review prompts and this one was
> flagged.  AI review below:
> 
>> diff --git a/arch/arm64/include/asm/pgtable.h b/arch/arm64/include/asm/pgtable.h
>> --- a/arch/arm64/include/asm/pgtable.h
>> +++ b/arch/arm64/include/asm/pgtable.h
>> @@ -1838,6 +1838,17 @@ static inline int ptep_clear_flush_young(struct vm_area_struct *vma,
>>   	return contpte_clear_flush_young_ptes(vma, addr, ptep, 1);
>>   }
>>
>> +#define clear_flush_young_ptes clear_flush_young_ptes
>> +static inline int clear_flush_young_ptes(struct vm_area_struct *vma,
>> +					 unsigned long addr, pte_t *ptep,
>> +					 unsigned int nr)
>> +{
>> +	if (likely(nr == 1 && !pte_cont(__ptep_get(ptep))))
>> +		return __ptep_clear_flush_young(vma, addr, ptep);
> 
> Should this be checking !pte_valid_cont() instead of !pte_cont()?
> 
> The existing ptep_clear_flush_young() above uses !pte_valid_cont() to
> determine when to take the fast path. The new function only checks
> !pte_cont(), which differs when handling non-present PTEs.
> 
> Non-present PTEs (device-private, device-exclusive) can reach
> clear_flush_young_ptes() through folio_referenced_one()->
> clear_flush_young_ptes_notify(). These entries may have bit 52 set as
> part of their encoding, but they aren't valid contiguous mappings.
> 
> With the current check, wouldn't such entries incorrectly trigger the
> contpte path and potentially cause contpte_clear_flush_young_ptes() to
> process additional unrelated PTEs beyond the intended single entry?

Indeed. I previously discussed with Ryan whether using pte_cont() was 
enough, and we believed that invalid PTEs wouldn’t have the PTE_CONT bit 
set. But we clearly missed the device-folio cases. Thanks for reporting.

Andrew, could you please squash the following fix into this patch? If 
you prefer a new version, please let me know. Thanks.

diff --git a/arch/arm64/include/asm/pgtable.h 
b/arch/arm64/include/asm/pgtable.h
index a17eb8a76788..dc16591c4241 100644
--- a/arch/arm64/include/asm/pgtable.h
+++ b/arch/arm64/include/asm/pgtable.h
@@ -1843,7 +1843,7 @@ static inline int clear_flush_young_ptes(struct 
vm_area_struct *vma,
                                          unsigned long addr, pte_t *ptep,
                                          unsigned int nr)
  {
-       if (likely(nr == 1 && !pte_cont(__ptep_get(ptep))))
+       if (likely(nr == 1 && !pte_valid_cont(__ptep_get(ptep))))
                 return __ptep_clear_flush_young(vma, addr, ptep);

         return contpte_clear_flush_young_ptes(vma, addr, ptep, nr);