Re: [PATCH net-next v6 1/6] page_pool: frag API support for 32-bit arch with 64-bit DMA

From: Yunsheng Lin
Date: Fri Aug 18 2023 - 04:47:15 EST


On 2023/8/17 19:43, Ilias Apalodimas wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In order to simplify the driver's work when using frag API
>>>>>> this patch allows page_pool_alloc_frag() to call
>>>>>> page_pool_alloc_pages() to return pages for those arches.
>>>>>
>>>>> Do we have any use cases of people needing this? Those architectures
>>>>> should be long dead and although we have to support them in the
>>>>> kernel, I don't personally see the advantage of adjusting the API to
>>>>> do that. Right now we have a very clear separation between allocating
>>>>> pages or fragments. Why should we hide a page allocation under a
>>>>> frag allocation? A driver writer can simply allocate pages for those
>>>>> boards. Am I the only one not seeing a clean win here?
>>>>
>>>> It is also a part of removing the per page_pool PP_FLAG_PAGE_FRAG flag
>>>> in this patchset.
>>>
>>> Yes, that happens *because* of this patchset. I am not against the
>>> change. In fact, I'll have a closer look tomorrow. I am just trying
>>> to figure out if we really need it. When the recycling patches were
>>> introduced into page pool we had a very specific reason. Due to the
>>> XDP verifier we *had* to allocate a packet per page. That was
>>
>> Did you mean a xdp frame containing a frag page can not be passed to the
>> xdp core?
>> What is exact reason why the XDP verifier need a packet per page?
>> Is there a code block that you can point me to?
>
> It's been a while since I looked at this, but doesn't __xdp_return()
> still sync the entire page if the mem type comes from page_pool?

Yes, I checked that too.
It is supposed to sync the entire page if the mem type comes from page_pool,
as it depend on the last freed frag to do the sync_for_device operation.