Re: [PATCH] mm/mglru: Fix young counter undercount for large folios

[Baolin Wang <baolin.wang@linux.alibaba.com>]

On 8/13/26 9:20 AM, Barry Song wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 13, 2026 at 9:09 AM Baolin Wang
> <baolin.wang@linux.alibaba.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On 8/13/26 8:53 AM, Barry Song wrote:
>>> On Wed, Aug 12, 2026 at 6:17 PM Baolin Wang
>>> <baolin.wang@linux.alibaba.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 8/12/26 2:59 PM, Hui Zhu wrote:
>>>>> From: Hui Zhu <zhuhui@kylinos.cn>
>>>>>
>>>>> In lru_gen_look_around(), the young counter tracks the number of young
>>>>> PTEs.  The original folio's contribution is represented by the initial
>>>>> value of young: test_and_clear_young_ptes_notify() is called on it at
>>>>> function entry, and the function returns early if it is not young.  In
>>>>> the subsequent loop, the original folio is skipped (its accessed bits
>>>>> were already cleared), so it is not double-counted.
>>>>>
>>>>> However, young is initialized to 1 regardless of the folio size.  When
>>>>> the original folio is a large folio with nr PTEs, its young count is
>>>>> underestimated by nr - 1.  This inconsistency can cause
>>>>> suitable_to_scan() to return false, preventing the PMD from being added
>>>>> to the bloom filter and reducing aging accuracy for mTHP workloads.
>>>>>
>>>>> Initialize young to nr so the original folio is accounted the same way
>>>>> as other young folios in the loop (young += nr).
>>>>>
>>>>> Signed-off-by: Hui Zhu <zhuhui@kylinos.cn>
>>>>> ---
>>>>
>>>> Good catch. Please also add the Fixes tag:
>>>>
>>>> Fixes: 56e5b60b2114 ("mm: support batched checking of the young flag for
>>>> MGLRU")
>>>>
>>>> With that,
>>>> Reviewed-by: Baolin Wang <baolin.wang@linux.alibaba.com>
>>>
>>> Hi Baolin, Hui,
>>>
>>> I am not convinced this is the correct patch. test_and_clear_young_ptes_notify()
>>> only indicates that there is at least one young PTE among the nr PTEs;
>>> it does not mean that all of the PTEs are young.
>>>
>>> Am I missing something?
>>
>> You are right. But I explained why this is done in my original commit
>> 56e5b60b2114:
>>
>> "
>> Note that we also update the 'young' counter and
>> 'mm_stats[MM_LEAF_YOUNG]' counter with the batched count in the
>> lru_gen_look_around() and walk_pte_range().  However, the batched
>> operations may inflate these two counters, because in a large folio not
>> all PTEs may have been accessed. (Additionally, tracking how many PTEs
>> have been accessed within a large folio is not very meaningful, since
>> the mm core actually tracks access/dirty on a per-folio basis, not per
>> page).  The impact analysis is as follows:
>>
>> 1. The 'mm_stats[MM_LEAF_YOUNG]' counter has no functional impact and is
>> mainly for debugging.
>>
>> 2. The 'young' counter is used to decide whether to place the current
>> PMD entry into the bloom filters by suitable_to_scan() (so that next
>> time we can check whether it has been accessed again), which may set the
>> hash bit in the bloom filters for a PMD entry that hasn't seen much
>> access.  However, bloom filters inherently allow some error, so this
>> effect appears negligible.
>> "
>>
>> Based on this, I think changing it to 'nr' is reasonable. For an
>> accessed large folio, it's better to have the bloom filter rescan the
>> PMD and keep it in memory instead of reclaiming it incorrectly.
>>
> 
> I am not sure if this is the best policy, but we don't seem to have
> a practical way to get the exact number of accessed PTEs, so this may
> be acceptable. 

As I mentioned earlier, it seems unnecessary to implement this, since 
core-mm tracks access flag at per-folio granularity. Moreover, bloom 
filter itself allows for some error.

However, could we at least update the changelog to
> clarify that this is intentional?
> 
> " However, young is initialized to 1 regardless of the folio size.  When
>   the original folio is a large folio with nr PTEs, its young count is
>   underestimated by nr - 1.  This inconsistency can cause
>   suitable_to_scan() to return false, preventing the PMD from being added"

Agree. Looks better.

> Its young count is not underestimated; we are intentionally
> overestimating it. Also, nr does not necessarily equal
> folio_nr_pages(), does it?

Right.