Re: [RFC PATCH v3 06/12] memory-provider: dmabuf devmem memory provider

[David Ahern]

On 11/7/23 5:02 PM, Mina Almasry wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 6, 2023 at 1:02 PM Stanislav Fomichev <sdf@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> On 11/05, Mina Almasry wrote:
>>> +static inline bool page_is_page_pool_iov(const struct page *page)
>>> +{
>>> +     return (unsigned long)page & PP_DEVMEM;
>>> +}
>>
>> Speaking of bpf: one thing that might be problematic with this PP_DEVMEM
>> bit is that it will make debugging with bpftrace a bit (more)
>> complicated. If somebody were trying to get to that page_pool_iov from
>> the frags, they will have to do the equivalent of page_is_page_pool_iov,
>> but probably not a big deal? (thinking out loud)
> 
> Good point, but that doesn't only apply to bpf I think. I'm guessing
> even debugger drgn access to the bv_page in the frag will have trouble
> if it's actually accessing an iov with LSB set.
> 
> But this is not specific to this use for LSB pointer trick. I think
> all code that currently uses LSB pointer trick will have similar
> troubles. In this context my humble vote is that we get such big
> upside from reducing code churn that it's reasonable to tolerate such
> side effects.

+1

> 
> I could alleviate some of the issues by teaching drgn to do the right
> thing for devmem/iovs... time permitting.
> 
Tools like drgn and crash have to know when the LSB trick is used  -
e.g., dst_entry - and handle it when dereferencing pointers.