Re: [PATCH v1 0/4]mm: convert totalram_pages, totalhigh_pages and managed pages to atomic

From: Arun KS
Date: Wed Nov 07 2018 - 01:19:48 EST


On 2018-11-07 05:52, Andrew Morton wrote:
On Fri, 26 Oct 2018 16:30:58 +0530 Arun KS <arunks@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

This series convert totalram_pages, totalhigh_pages and
zone->managed_pages to atomic variables.

The whole point appears to be removal of managed_page_count_lock, yes?

Why? What is the value of this patchset? If "performance" then are any
measurements available?

Hello Andrew,

https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/10670787/
In version 2, I have added motivation behind this conversion. Pasting same here,

totalram_pages, zone->managed_pages and totalhigh_pages updates are protected by managed_page_count_lock, but readers never care about it. Convert these variables to atomic to avoid readers potentially seeing a store tear. I don't think we have a performance improvement here.

Regards,
Arun