Re: [PATCH v5 1/2] memory_hotplug: Free pages as higher order

[Michal Hocko]

On Wed 10-10-18 22:26:41, Arun KS wrote:
> On 2018-10-10 21:00, Vlastimil Babka wrote:
> > On 10/5/18 10:10 AM, Arun KS wrote:
> > > When free pages are done with higher order, time spend on
> > > coalescing pages by buddy allocator can be reduced. With
> > > section size of 256MB, hot add latency of a single section
> > > shows improvement from 50-60 ms to less than 1 ms, hence
> > > improving the hot add latency by 60%. Modify external
> > > providers of online callback to align with the change.
> > > 
> > > Signed-off-by: Arun KS <arunks@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > 
> > [...]
> > 
> > > @@ -655,26 +655,44 @@ void __online_page_free(struct page *page)
> > >  }
> > >  EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(__online_page_free);
> > > 
> > > -static void generic_online_page(struct page *page)
> > > +static int generic_online_page(struct page *page, unsigned int order)
> > >  {
> > > -	__online_page_set_limits(page);
> > 
> > This is now not called anymore, although the xen/hv variants still do
> > it. The function seems empty these days, maybe remove it as a followup
> > cleanup?
> > 
> > > -	__online_page_increment_counters(page);
> > > -	__online_page_free(page);
> > > +	__free_pages_core(page, order);
> > > +	totalram_pages += (1UL << order);
> > > +#ifdef CONFIG_HIGHMEM
> > > +	if (PageHighMem(page))
> > > +		totalhigh_pages += (1UL << order);
> > > +#endif
> > 
> > __online_page_increment_counters() would have used
> > adjust_managed_page_count() which would do the changes under
> > managed_page_count_lock. Are we safe without the lock? If yes, there
> > should perhaps be a comment explaining why.
> 
> Looks unsafe without managed_page_count_lock.

Why does it matter actually? We cannot online/offline memory in
parallel. This is not the case for the boot where we initialize memory
in parallel on multiple nodes. So this seems to be safe currently unless
I am missing something. A comment explaining that would be helpful
though.
-- 
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs