Re: [PATCH] mm/mempolicy: failed to disable numa balancing

From: Mel Gorman
Date: Fri Dec 16 2022 - 05:46:46 EST


On Fri, Dec 02, 2022 at 11:59:54AM -0800, Andrew Morton wrote:
> On Fri, 2 Dec 2022 22:16:30 +0800 tzm <tcm1030@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > It will be failed to disable numa balancing policy permanently by passing
> > <numa_balancing=disable> to boot cmdline parameters.
> > The numabalancing_override variable is int and 1 for enable -1 for disable.
> > So, !enumabalancing_override will always be true, which cause this bug.
>
> That's really old code!
>
> > --- a/mm/mempolicy.c
> > +++ b/mm/mempolicy.c
> > @@ -2865,7 +2865,7 @@ static void __init check_numabalancing_enable(void)
> > if (numabalancing_override)
> > set_numabalancing_state(numabalancing_override == 1);
> >
> > - if (num_online_nodes() > 1 && !numabalancing_override) {
> > + if (num_online_nodes() > 1 && (numabalancing_override == 1)) {
> > pr_info("%s automatic NUMA balancing. Configure with numa_balancing= or the kernel.numa_balancing sysctl\n",
> > numabalancing_default ? "Enabling" : "Disabling");
> > set_numabalancing_state(numabalancing_default);
>
> Looks right to me. Mel?
>
> After eight years, I wonder if we actually need this.

I don't think the patch is right aside from coding style issues such as
real names used in signed-off-by's.

The !numabalancing_override is checking "should the default be changed?",
itt's not checking if it should be enabled specifically. A better potential
fix would be something like this? (not actually tested)

diff --git a/mm/mempolicy.c b/mm/mempolicy.c
index 61aa9aedb728..fc649f8509f7 100644
--- a/mm/mempolicy.c
+++ b/mm/mempolicy.c
@@ -2862,10 +2862,12 @@ static void __init check_numabalancing_enable(void)
numabalancing_default = true;

/* Parsed by setup_numabalancing. override == 1 enables, -1 disables */
- if (numabalancing_override)
+ if (numabalancing_override) {
set_numabalancing_state(numabalancing_override == 1);
+ return;
+ }

- if (num_online_nodes() > 1 && !numabalancing_override) {
+ if (num_online_nodes() > 1) {
pr_info("%s automatic NUMA balancing. Configure with numa_balancing= or the kernel.numa_balancing sysctl\n",
numabalancing_default ? "Enabling" : "Disabling");
set_numabalancing_state(numabalancing_default);