Re: [PATCH 1/1] doc, mempolicy: Fix wrong document in numa_memory_policy.txt

From: Tang Chen
Date: Fri Apr 11 2014 - 04:14:18 EST



Hi Randy,

On 04/11/2014 07:23 AM, Randy Dunlap wrote:
On 04/01/2014 08:53 PM, Tang Chen wrote:
In document numa_memory_policy.txt, the following examples for flag
MPOL_F_RELATIVE_NODES are incorrect.

For example, consider a task that is attached to a cpuset with
mems 2-5 that sets an Interleave policy over the same set with
MPOL_F_RELATIVE_NODES. If the cpuset's mems change to 3-7, the
interleave now occurs over nodes 3,5-6. If the cpuset's mems
then change to 0,2-3,5, then the interleave occurs over nodes
0,3,5.

According to the comment of the patch adding flag MPOL_F_RELATIVE_NODES,
the nodemasks the user specifies should be considered relative to the
current task's mems_allowed.
(https://lkml.org/lkml/2008/2/29/428)

And according to numa_memory_policy.txt, if the user's nodemask includes
nodes that are outside the range of the new set of allowed nodes, then
the remap wraps around to the beginning of the nodemask and, if not already
set, sets the node in the mempolicy nodemask.

So in the example, if the user specifies 2-5, for a task whose mems_allowed
is 3-7, the nodemasks should be remapped the third, fourth, fifth, sixth
node in mems_allowed. like the following:

mems_allowed: 3 4 5 6 7

relative index: 0 1 2 3 4
5

So the nodemasks should be remapped to 3,5-7, but not 3,5-6.

And for a task whose mems_allowed is 0,2-3,5, the nodemasks should be
remapped to 0,2-3,5, but not 0,3,5.

mems_allowed: 0 2 3 5

relative index: 0 1 2 3
4 5


Signed-off-by: Tang Chen<tangchen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Wow. This was not an April fools joke, right?

Have there been any acks of this? I haven't seen any responses to it.

Thanks for the reply. I found this problem when I was reading the doc.
I think it is wrong. And according to the original patch:

https://lkml.org/lkml/2008/2/29/428

I think it should be fixed in the above way. But if I was wrong, please
let me know, and I think we can at least improve the doc since it is
not that easy to understand.

Thanks. :)


Andrew, do you want to merge it?


---
Documentation/vm/numa_memory_policy.txt | 5 ++---
1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/vm/numa_memory_policy.txt b/Documentation/vm/numa_memory_policy.txt
index 4e7da65..badb050 100644
--- a/Documentation/vm/numa_memory_policy.txt
+++ b/Documentation/vm/numa_memory_policy.txt
@@ -174,7 +174,6 @@ Components of Memory Policies
allocation fails, the kernel will search other nodes, in order of
increasing distance from the preferred node based on information
provided by the platform firmware.
- containing the cpu where the allocation takes place.

Internally, the Preferred policy uses a single node--the
preferred_node member of struct mempolicy. When the internal
@@ -275,9 +274,9 @@ Components of Memory Policies
For example, consider a task that is attached to a cpuset with
mems 2-5 that sets an Interleave policy over the same set with
MPOL_F_RELATIVE_NODES. If the cpuset's mems change to 3-7, the
- interleave now occurs over nodes 3,5-6. If the cpuset's mems
+ interleave now occurs over nodes 3,5-7. If the cpuset's mems
then change to 0,2-3,5, then the interleave occurs over nodes
- 0,3,5.
+ 0,2-3,5.

Thanks to the consistent remapping, applications preparing
nodemasks to specify memory policies using this flag should



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