netdev - Re: [PATCH 1/1] mm: Fix struct page layout on 32-bit systems

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Date:   Mon, 19 Apr 2021 10:15:58 +0300
From:   Ilias Apalodimas <ilias.apalodimas@...aro.org>
To:     Christoph Hellwig <hch@....de>
Cc:     Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>,
        Jesper Dangaard Brouer <brouer@...hat.com>,
        David Laight <David.Laight@...lab.com>,
        "linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        "linux-mm@...ck.org" <linux-mm@...ck.org>,
        "netdev@...r.kernel.org" <netdev@...r.kernel.org>,
        "linuxppc-dev@...ts.ozlabs.org" <linuxppc-dev@...ts.ozlabs.org>,
        "linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org" 
        <linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org>,
        "linux-mips@...r.kernel.org" <linux-mips@...r.kernel.org>,
        Matteo Croce <mcroce@...ux.microsoft.com>,
        Grygorii Strashko <grygorii.strashko@...com>,
        Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...nel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/1] mm: Fix struct page layout on 32-bit systems

Hi Christoph,

On Mon, Apr 19, 2021 at 08:34:41AM +0200, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 16, 2021 at 04:27:55PM +0100, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> > On Thu, Apr 15, 2021 at 08:08:32PM +0200, Jesper Dangaard Brouer wrote:
> > > See below patch.  Where I swap32 the dma address to satisfy
> > > page->compound having bit zero cleared. (It is the simplest fix I could
> > > come up with).
> > 
> > I think this is slightly simpler, and as a bonus code that assumes the
> > old layout won't compile.
> 
> So, why do we even do this crappy overlay of a dma address?  This just
> all seems like a giant hack.  Random subsystems should not just steal
> a few struct page fields as that just turns into the desasters like the
> one we've seen here or probably something worse next time.

The page pool API was using page->private in the past to store these kind of
info. That caused a problem to begin with, since it would fail  on 32-bit
systems with 64bit DMA.  We had a similar discussion on the past but decided
struct page is the right place to store that [1].

Another advantage is that we can now use the information from the networking 
subsystem and enable recycling of SKBs and SKB fragments, by using the stored 
metadata of struct page [2].

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/20190207.132519.1698007650891404763.davem@davemloft.net/
[2] https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/20210409223801.104657-1-mcroce@linux.microsoft.com/

Cheers
/Ilias