Re: [PATCH] Revert "mm/page_alloc: protect pcp->batch accesses with ACCESS_ONCE"

[Hekuang <hekuang@huawei.com>]

hi

a?? 2016/3/31 9:39, Zefan Li a??e??:
> On 2016/3/31 9:14, Hekuang wrote:
>> Hi
>>
>> a?? 2016/3/30 19:10, Michal Hocko a??e??:
>>> On Wed 30-03-16 18:51:12, Hekuang wrote:
>>>> hi
>>>>
>>>> a?? 2016/3/30 18:38, Mel Gorman a??e??:
>>>>> On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 10:22:07AM +0000, He Kuang wrote:
>>>>>> This reverts commit 998d39cb236fe464af86a3492a24d2f67ee1efc2.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> When local irq is disabled, a percpu variable does not change, so we can
>>>>>> remove the access macros and let the compiler optimize the code safely.
>>>>>>
>>>>> batch can be changed from other contexts. Why is this safe?
>>>>>
>>>> I've mistakenly thought that per_cpu variable can only be accessed by that
>>>> cpu.
>>> git blame would point you to 998d39cb236f ("mm/page_alloc: protect
>>> pcp->batch accesses with ACCESS_ONCE"). I haven't looked into the code
>>> deeply to confirm this is still the case but it would be a good lead
>>> that this is not that simple. ACCESS_ONCE resp. {READ,WRITE}_ONCE are
>>> usually quite subtle so I would encourage you or anybody else who try to
>>> remove them to study the code and the history deeper before removing
>>> them.
>>>
>> Thank you for responding, I've read that commit and related articles and not sending
>> mail casually, though you may think it's a stupid patch. I'm a beginner and I think
>> sending mails to maillist is a effective way to learn kernel, And, sure i'll be more careful and
>> well prepared next time :)
>>
> pcp->batch can be changed in a different cpu. You may read percpu_pagelist_fraction_sysctl_handler()
> to see how that can happen.
>
>
OK. got it!

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