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From: Rik van Riel <riel@surriel.com>
To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Cc: kernel-team@meta.com, linux-mm@kvack.org, david@kernel.org,
	willy@infradead.org, surenb@google.com, hannes@cmpxchg.org,
	ljs@kernel.org, ziy@nvidia.com, usama.arif@linux.dev,
	fvdl@google.com
Subject: [RFC PATCH 00/40] mm: reliable 1GB page allocation
Date: Wed, 20 May 2026 10:59:06 -0400	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260520150018.2491267-1-riel@surriel.com> (raw)


Some workloads see real performance benefits from using 1GB pages,
but allocating 1GB pages has often been limited to hugetlb pages
that were set aside at boot time, or using CMA to keep a fixed
amount of system memory off limits to the kernel.

Neither of those are great solutions, given that modern servers
tend to be large, often run multiple workloads simultaneously,
and each workload wants something else.

To address that issue, this patch series divides memory not just
into 2MB page blocks, but into PUD sized superpageblocks, and
aggressively tries to steer unmovable, reclaimable, and highatomic
allocations into those superpageblocks that have already been
"tainted" by such allocations.

The goal is to leave as many 1GB superpageblocks as possible
used by only movable allocations, so they can be easily
defragmented for either regular PMD sized huge pages, or
for PUD sized huge pages.

Various strategies are used to accomplish this goal:
- unmovable and reclaimable allocations are preferentially
  done from 1GB blocks that have already been "tainted" by
  these allocations
- kernel allocations that can be done as one higher order
  allocation, or a number of smaller allocations (eg. kvmalloc)
  will fall back to small pages, rather than taint a new
  1GB block
- movable allocations are preferentially done from clean 1GB
  blocks, which have only free and movable memory inside,
  starting with the fullest of these 1GB blocks
- 2MB allocations follow the same strategy
- 1GB allocations start with the emptiest clean 1GB block
- if a 1GB block is mixed, with some movable pageblocks,
  some free pageblocks, and some unmovable/reclaimable pageblocks,
  the system has a free threshold below which only unmovable and
  reclaimable allocations can be done from that 1GB block
- below that threshold, no new movable allocations are allowed
  in that 1GB block, while new unmovable/reclaimable allocations
  are still allowed
- when a 1GB block is below that threshold, use the migration
  code to evacuate enough movable memory from the 1GB block
  to bring free memory in that 1GB block back to the threshold

These strategies together serve to concentrate unmovable and
reclaimable allocations in as few 1GB blocks as possible,
leaving as many 1GB blocks as possible available for movable
allocations.

That enables both more extensive use of 2MB THPs and mTHPs,
as well as reliable allocation of 1GB pages.

The above strategies also make the core page allocator
more complicated, and slower. In order to avoid that issue,
the series is built on top of Johannes's PCPBuddy series,
which has the goal of reducing how often CPUs need to get
pages from the zone free lists, instead relying on CPUs
giving back pages to each other, based on page block ownership.

TODO:
- compaction "always" succeeds, with a success rate of 99.96% seen
  in traces; this sounds great, but it also results in compaction
  never being throttled, and compaction blowing out everybody's
  PCP through lru_add_drain() calls. This needs some sort of solution.
- replace the superpageblock name with something Matthew and David
  both like
- find more corner cases, and fix them

Based on e1914add2799




             reply	other threads:[~2026-05-20 15:00 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 53+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2026-05-20 14:59 Rik van Riel [this message]
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 01/40] mm: page_alloc: replace pageblock_flags bitmap with struct pageblock_data Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 02/40] mm: page_alloc: per-cpu pageblock buddy allocator Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 03/40] mm: page_alloc: split-path PCP free with local-trylock + remote-llist Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 04/40] mm: mm_init: fix zone assignment for pages in unavailable ranges Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 05/40] mm: page_alloc: remove watermark boost mechanism Rik van Riel
2026-05-26 14:02   ` Usama Arif
2026-05-27 15:41     ` Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 06/40] mm: page_alloc: async evacuation of stolen movable pageblocks Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 07/40] mm: page_alloc: track actual page contents in pageblock flags Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 08/40] mm: page_alloc: superpageblock metadata for 1GB anti-fragmentation Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 09/40] mm: page_alloc: support superpageblock resize for memory hotplug Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 10/40] mm: page_alloc: add superpageblock fullness lists for allocation steering Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 11/40] mm: page_alloc: steer pageblock stealing to tainted superpageblocks Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 12/40] mm: page_alloc: steer movable allocations to fullest clean superpageblocks Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 13/40] mm: page_alloc: extract claim_whole_block from try_to_claim_block Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 14/40] mm: page_alloc: add per-superpageblock free lists Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 15/40] mm: page_alloc: add background superpageblock defragmentation worker Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 16/40] mm: compaction: walk per-superpageblock free lists for migration targets Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 17/40] mm: page_alloc: superpageblock-aware contiguous and higher order allocation Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 18/40] mm: page_alloc: prevent atomic allocations from tainting clean SPBs Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 19/40] mm: page_alloc: aggressively pack non-movable allocs in tainted SPBs on large systems Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 20/40] mm: page_alloc: prefer reclaim over tainting clean superpageblocks Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 21/40] mm: page_alloc: adopt partial pageblocks from tainted superpageblocks Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 22/40] mm: page_alloc: add CONFIG_DEBUG_VM sanity checks for SPB counters Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 23/40] mm: page_alloc: targeted evacuation and dynamic reserves for tainted SPBs Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 24/40] mm: page_alloc: prevent UNMOVABLE/RECLAIMABLE mixing in pageblocks Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 25/40] mm: trigger deferred SPB evac when atomic allocs would taint a clean SPB Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 26/40] mm: page_alloc: refuse fragmenting fallback for callers with cheap fallback Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 27/40] mm: page_alloc: cross-migratetype buddy borrow within tainted SPBs Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 28/40] mm: page_alloc: drive slab shrink from SPB anti-fragmentation pressure Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 29/40] mm: page_reporting: walk per-superpageblock free lists Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 30/40] mm: show_mem: collect migratetype letters from per-superpageblock lists Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 31/40] mm: page_alloc: per-(zone, order, mt) PASS_1 hint cache Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 32/40] mm: debug: prevent infinite recursion in dump_page() with CMA Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 33/40] PM: hibernate: walk per-superpageblock free lists in mark_free_pages Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 18:19   ` Rafael J. Wysocki
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 34/40] btrfs: allocate eb-attached btree pages as movable Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 17:47   ` Boris Burkov
2026-05-23 15:58     ` David Sterba
2026-05-24  1:43       ` Rik van Riel
2026-05-24 19:59         ` Matthew Wilcox
2026-05-25  6:57           ` Christoph Hellwig
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 35/40] mm: page_alloc: refuse best-effort high-order allocs servable at lower orders Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 36/40] mm: page_alloc: set ALLOC_NOFRAGMENT on alloc_frozen_pages_nolock_noprof Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 37/40] mm: page_alloc: move spb_get_category and spb_tainted_reserve to mmzone.h Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 38/40] mm: compaction: skip empty tainted superpageblocks as migration source Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 39/40] mm: compaction: respect tainted SPB reserve in destination selection Rik van Riel
2026-05-20 14:59 ` [RFC PATCH 40/40] mm: page_alloc: SPB tracepoint instrumentation [DO-NOT-MERGE] Rik van Riel
2026-05-21  5:09   ` kernel test robot
2026-05-21  7:39 ` [syzbot ci] Re: mm: reliable 1GB page allocation syzbot ci
2026-05-22 11:02 ` [RFC PATCH 00/40] " Usama Arif
2026-05-22 13:55   ` Rik van Riel

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