Re: [PATCH v6 4/5] KVM: guest_memfd: Enforce NUMA mempolicy using shared policy

David Hildenbrand
2025-03-04T15:51:33Z

On 04.03.25 16:30, Sean Christopherson wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 04, 2025, Ackerley Tng wrote:
>> Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz> writes:
>>>> struct shared_policy should be stored on the inode rather than the file,
>>>> since the memory policy is a property of the memory (struct inode),
>>>> rather than a property of how the memory is used for a given VM (struct
>>>> file).
>>>
>>> That makes sense. AFAICS shmem also uses inodes to store policy.
>>>
>>>> When the shared_policy is stored on the inode, intra-host migration [1]
>>>> will work correctly, since the while the inode will be transferred from
>>>> one VM (struct kvm) to another, the file (a VM's view/bindings of the
>>>> memory) will be recreated for the new VM.
>>>>
>>>> I'm thinking of having a patch like this [2] to introduce inodes.
>>>
>>> shmem has it easier by already having inodes
>>>
>>>> With this, we shouldn't need to pass file pointers instead of inode
>>>> pointers.
>>>
>>> Any downsides, besides more work needed? Or is it feasible to do it using
>>> files now and convert to inodes later?
>>>
>>> Feels like something that must have been discussed already, but I don't
>>> recall specifics.
>>
>> Here's where Sean described file vs inode: "The inode is effectively the
>> raw underlying physical storage, while the file is the VM's view of that
>> storage." [1].
>>
>> I guess you're right that for now there is little distinction between
>> file and inode and using file should be feasible, but I feel that this
>> dilutes the original intent.
>
> Hmm, and using the file would be actively problematic at some point. One could
> argue that NUMA policy is property of the VM accessing the memory, i.e. that two
> VMs mapping the same guest_memfd could want different policies. But in practice,
> that would allow for conflicting requirements, e.g. different policies in each
> VM for the same chunk of memory, and would likely lead to surprising behavior due
> to having to manually do mbind() for every VM/file view.

I think that's the same behavior with shmem? I mean, if you have two
people asking for different things for the same MAP_SHARE file range,
surprises are unavoidable.

Or am I missing something?

--
Cheers,

David / dhildenb