Re: [PATCH RFC] mm/madvise: introduce MADV_POPULATE to prefault/prealloc memory

From: David Hildenbrand
Date: Fri Feb 19 2021 - 05:45:54 EST


On 19.02.21 11:35, Michal Hocko wrote:
On Wed 17-02-21 16:48:44, David Hildenbrand wrote:
[...]

I only got to the implementation now.

+static long madvise_populate(struct vm_area_struct *vma,
+ struct vm_area_struct **prev,
+ unsigned long start, unsigned long end)
+{
+ struct mm_struct *mm = vma->vm_mm;
+ unsigned long tmp_end;
+ int locked = 1;
+ long pages;
+
+ *prev = vma;
+
+ while (start < end) {
+ /*
+ * We might have temporarily dropped the lock. For example,
+ * our VMA might have been split.
+ */
+ if (!vma || start >= vma->vm_end) {
+ vma = find_vma(mm, start);
+ if (!vma)
+ return -ENOMEM;
+ }

Why do you need to find a vma when you already have one. do_madvise will
give you your vma already. I do understand that you want to finish the
vma for some errors but that shouldn't require handling vmas. You should
be in the shope of one here unless I miss anything.

See below, we might temporary drop the lock while not having processed all pages


+
+ /* Bail out on incompatible VMA types. */
+ if (vma->vm_flags & (VM_IO | VM_PFNMAP) ||
+ !vma_is_accessible(vma)) {
+ return -EINVAL;
+ }
+
+ /*
+ * Populate pages and take care of VM_LOCKED: simulate user
+ * space access.
+ *
+ * For private, writable mappings, trigger a write fault to
+ * break COW (i.e., shared zeropage). For other mappings (i.e.,
+ * read-only, shared), trigger a read fault.
+ */
+ tmp_end = min_t(unsigned long, end, vma->vm_end);
+ pages = populate_vma_page_range(vma, start, tmp_end, &locked);
+ if (!locked) {
+ mmap_read_lock(mm);
+ *prev = NULL;
+ vma = NULL;

^ here

so, the VMA might have been replaced/split/... in the meantime.

So to make forward progress, I have to lookup again. (similar. but different to madvise_dontneed_free()).

--
Thanks,

David / dhildenb