Re: [PATCH] mm: Fix mmap MAP_POPULATE for DAX pmd mapping

[Toshi Kani <toshi.kani@hpe.com>]

On Wed, 2015-12-02 at 13:02 -0700, Toshi Kani wrote:
> On Wed, 2015-12-02 at 11:00 -0800, Dan Williams wrote:
> > On Wed, Dec 2, 2015 at 11:26 AM, Toshi Kani <toshi.kani@hpe.com> wrote:
> > > On Wed, 2015-12-02 at 10:06 -0800, Dan Williams wrote:
> > > > On Wed, Dec 2, 2015 at 9:01 AM, Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@intel.com>
> > > > wrote:
> > > > > On Wed, Dec 2, 2015 at 9:43 AM, Toshi Kani <toshi.kani@hpe.com> wrote:
> > > > > > Oh, I see.  I will setup the memmap array and run the tests again.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > But, why does the PMD mapping depend on the memmap array?  We have
> > > > > > observed major performance improvement with PMD.  This feature 
> > > > > > should always be enabled with DAX regardless of the option to 
> > > > > > allocate the memmap array.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > > Several factors drove this decision, I'm open to considering
> > > > > alternatives but here's the reasoning:
> > > > > 
> > > > > 1/ DAX pmd mappings caused crashes in the get_user_pages path leading
> > > > > to commit e82c9ed41e8 "dax: disable pmd mappings".  The reason pte
> > > > > mappings don't crash and instead trigger -EFAULT is due to the
> > > > > _PAGE_SPECIAL pte bit.
> > > > > 
> > > > > 2/ To enable get_user_pages for DAX, in both the page and huge-page
> > > > > case, we need a new pte bit _PAGE_DEVMAP.
> > > > > 
> > > > > 3/ Given the pte bits are hard to come I'm assuming we won't get two,
> > > > > i.e. both _PAGE_DEVMAP and a new _PAGE_SPECIAL for pmds.  Even if we
> > > > > could get a _PAGE_SPECIAL for pmds I'm not in favor of pursuing it.
> > > > 
> > > > Actually, Dave says they aren't that hard to come by for pmds, so we
> > > > could go add _PMD_SPECIAL if we really wanted to support the limited
> > > > page-less DAX-pmd case.
> > > > 
> > > > But I'm still of the opinion that we run away from the page-less case
> > > > until it can be made a full class citizen with O_DIRECT for pfn
> > > > support.
> > > 
> > > I may be missing something, but per vm_normal_page(), I think 
> > > _PAGE_SPECIAL can be substituted by the following check when we do not
> > > have the memmap.
> > > 
> > >         if ((vma->vm_flags & VM_PFNMAP) ||
> > >             ((vma->vm_flags & VM_MIXEDMAP) && (!pfn_valid(pfn)))) {
> > > 
> > > This is what I did in this patch for follow_trans_huge_pmd(), although I
> > > missed the pfn_valid() check.
> > 
> > That works for __get_user_pages but not __get_user_pages_fast where we
> > don't have access to the vma.
> 
> __get_user_page_fast already refers current->mm, so we should be able to get 
> the vma, and pass it down to gup_pud_range().

Alternatively, we can obtain the vma from current->mm in gup_huge_pmd() when the
!pfn_valid() condition is met, so that we do not add the code to the main path
of __get_user_pages_fast.

Thanks,
-Toshi

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