Linux CXL
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From: Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@intel.com>
To: Shesha Bhushan Sreenivasamurthy <sheshas@marvell.com>,
	"linux-cxl@vger.kernel.org" <linux-cxl@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: RE: DAX system-ram usage by the kernel
Date: Tue, 7 Feb 2023 10:23:54 -0800	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <63e2973a2af40_10757e29420@dwillia2-xfh.jf.intel.com.notmuch> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <DM6PR18MB2844FB8086757984EA312AE3AFD69@DM6PR18MB2844.namprd18.prod.outlook.com>

Shesha Bhushan Sreenivasamurthy wrote:
> Hello All,
>     When a CXL memory is assigned as system-ram using daxctl after
> boot, can kernel allocate memory from this memory range which cannot
> be moved and prevent this device from being made offline ?

Yes. Even with ZONE_MOVABLE there is no 100% guarantee that Linux will
not pin pages in there that prevent removal. The command:

  daxctl offline-memory $daxdev

...automates trying to offline all memblocks associate with $daxdev. If
that fails it means a page was busy in the kernel.

If a configuration needs hard guarantees then memory can not be onlined
at all and must be accessed via device-mappings.  If the configuration
can tolerate "more often than not successful removal" then ZONE_MOVABLE
targets that. Note though that there is a ratio of ZONE_NORMAL needed to
support increasing ZONE_MOVABLE. See the "auto-movable" setting for
"online_policy" in Documentation/admin-guide/mm/memory-hotplug.rst for
more details.

      parent reply	other threads:[~2023-02-07 18:26 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 4+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2023-02-02 17:35 DAX system-ram usage by the kernel Shesha Bhushan Sreenivasamurthy
2023-02-02 17:56 ` Shesha Bhushan Sreenivasamurthy
2023-02-02  0:35   ` Gregory Price
2023-02-07 18:23 ` Dan Williams [this message]

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