Re: [PATCH v13 4/5] mm: support reporting free page blocks

From: Wei Wang
Date: Thu Aug 03 2017 - 07:24:40 EST


On 08/03/2017 06:44 PM, Michal Hocko wrote:
On Thu 03-08-17 18:42:15, Wei Wang wrote:
On 08/03/2017 05:11 PM, Michal Hocko wrote:
On Thu 03-08-17 14:38:18, Wei Wang wrote:
[...]
+static int report_free_page_block(struct zone *zone, unsigned int order,
+ unsigned int migratetype, struct page **page)
This is just too ugly and wrong actually. Never provide struct page
pointers outside of the zone->lock. What I've had in mind was to simply
walk free lists of the suitable order and call the callback for each one.
Something as simple as

for (i = 0; i < MAX_NR_ZONES; i++) {
struct zone *zone = &pgdat->node_zones[i];

if (!populated_zone(zone))
continue;
spin_lock_irqsave(&zone->lock, flags);
for (order = min_order; order < MAX_ORDER; ++order) {
struct free_area *free_area = &zone->free_area[order];
enum migratetype mt;
struct page *page;

if (!free_area->nr_pages)
continue;

for_each_migratetype_order(order, mt) {
list_for_each_entry(page,
&free_area->free_list[mt], lru) {

pfn = page_to_pfn(page);
visit(opaque2, prn, 1<<order);
}
}
}

spin_unlock_irqrestore(&zone->lock, flags);
}

[...]

I think the above would take the lock for too long time. That's why we
prefer to take one free page block each time, and taking it one by one
also doesn't make a difference, in terms of the performance that we
need.
I think you should start with simple approach and impove incrementally
if this turns out to be not optimal. I really detest taking struct pages
outside of the lock. You never know what might happen after the lock is
dropped. E.g. can you race with the memory hotremove?


The caller won't use pages returned from the function, so I think there
shouldn't be an issue or race if the returned pages are used (i.e. not free
anymore) or simply gone due to hotremove.


Best,
Wei