Re: [PATCH 1/2] mm: Make alloc_contig_range handle free hugetlb pages

[Oscar Salvador]

On Fri, Feb 19, 2021 at 10:56:42AM +0100, Michal Hocko wrote:
> OK, this should work but I am really wondering whether it wouldn't be
> just simpler to replace the old page by a new one in the free list
> directly. Or is there any reason we have to go through the generic
> helpers path? I mean something like this
> 
> 	new_page = alloc_fresh_huge_page();
> 	if (!new_page)
> 		goto fail;
> 	spin_lock(hugetlb_lock);
> 	if (!PageHuge(old_page)) {
> 		/* freed from under us, nothing to do */ 
> 		__update_and_free_page(new_page);
> 		goto unlock;
> 	}
> 	list_del(&old_page->lru);
> 	__update_and_free_page(old_page);
> 	__enqueue_huge_page(new_page);
> unlock:
> 	spin_unlock(hugetlb_lock);
> 
> This will require to split update_and_free_page and enqueue_huge_page to
> counters independent parts but that shouldn't be a big deal. But it will
> also protect from any races. Not an act of beauty but seems less hackish
> to me.

Yes, I think this would to the trick, and it is race-free.
Let me play with it a bit and see what I can come up with.

Thanks for the valuable insight.

-- 
Oscar Salvador
SUSE L3