Re: [net-next v1 09/16] page_pool: device memory support

Mina Almasry
2023-12-11T04:04:50Z

On Sun, Dec 10, 2023 at 6:26 PM Mina Almasry <almasrymina@google.com> wrote:
>
> On Sun, Dec 10, 2023 at 6:04 PM Yunsheng Lin <linyunsheng@huawei.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 2023/12/9 0:05, Mina Almasry wrote:
> > > On Fri, Dec 8, 2023 at 1:30 AM Yunsheng Lin <linyunsheng@huawei.com> wrote:
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> As mentioned before, it seems we need to have the above checking every
> > >> time we need to do some per-page handling in page_pool core, is there
> > >> a plan in your mind how to remove those kind of checking in the future?
> > >>
> > >
> > > I see 2 ways to remove the checking, both infeasible:
> > >
> > > 1. Allocate a wrapper struct that pulls out all the fields the page pool needs:
> > >
> > > struct netmem {
> > > /* common fields */
> > > refcount_t refcount;
> > > bool is_pfmemalloc;
> > > int nid;
> > > ...
> > > union {
> > > struct dmabuf_genpool_chunk_owner *owner;
> > > struct page * page;
> > > };
> > > };
> > >
> > > The page pool can then not care if the underlying memory is iov or
> > > page. However this introduces significant memory bloat as this struct
> > > needs to be allocated for each page or ppiov, which I imagine is not
> > > acceptable for the upside of removing a few static_branch'd if
> > > statements with no performance cost.
> > >
> > > 2. Create a unified struct for page and dmabuf memory, which the mm
> > > folks have repeatedly nacked, and I imagine will repeatedly nack in
> > > the future.
> > >
> > > So I imagine the special handling of ppiov in some form is critical
> > > and the checking may not be removable.
> >
> > If the above is true, perhaps devmem is not really supposed to be intergated
> > into page_pool.
> >
> > Adding a checking for every per-page handling in page_pool core is just too
> > hacky to be really considerred a longterm solution.
> >
>
> The only other option is to implement another page_pool for ppiov and
> have the driver create page_pool or ppiov_pool depending on the state
> of the netdev_rx_queue (or some helper in the net stack to do that for
> the driver). This introduces some code duplication. The ppiov_pool &
> page_pool would look similar in implementation.
>
> But this was all discussed in detail in RFC v2 and the last response I
> heard from Jesper was in favor if this approach, if I understand
> correctly:
>
> https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/7aedc5d5-0daf-63be-21bc-3b724cc1cab9@redhat.com/
>
> Would love to have the maintainer weigh in here.
>

I should note we may be able to remove some of the checking, but maybe not all.

- Checks that disable page fragging for ppiov can be removed once
ppiov has frag support (in this series or follow up).

- If we use page->pp_frag_count (or page->pp_ref_count) for
refcounting ppiov, we can remove the if checking in the refcounting.

- We may be able to store the dma_addr of the ppiov in page->dma_addr,
but I'm unsure if that actually works, because the dma_buf dmaddr is
dma_addr_t (u32 or u64), but page->dma_addr is unsigned long (4 bytes
I think). But if it works for pages I may be able to make it work for
ppiov as well.

- Checks that obtain the page->pp can work with ppiov if we align the
offset of page->pp and ppiov->pp.

- Checks around page->pp_magic can be removed if we also have offset
aligned ppiov->pp_magic.

Sadly I don't see us removing the checking for these other cases:

- page_is_pfmemalloc(): I'm not allowed to pass a non-struct page into
that helper.

- page_to_nid(): I'm not allowed to pass a non-struct page into that helper.

- page_pool_free_va(): ppiov have no va.

- page_pool_sync_for_dev/page_pool_dma_map: ppiov backed by dma-buf
fundamentally can't get mapped again.

Are the removal (or future removal) of these checks enough to resolve this?

> > It is somewhat ironical that devmem is using static_branch to alliviate the
> > performance impact for normal memory at the possible cost of performance
> > degradation for devmem, does it not defeat some purpose of intergating devmem
> > to page_pool?
> >
>
> I don't see the issue. The static branch sets the non-ppiov path as
> default if no memory providers are in use, and flips it when they are,
> making the default branch prediction ideal in both cases.
>
> > >
> > >> Even though a static_branch check is added in page_is_page_pool_iov(), it
> > >> does not make much sense that a core has tow different 'struct' for its
> > >> most basic data.
> > >>
> > >> IMHO, the ppiov for dmabuf is forced fitting into page_pool without much
> > >> design consideration at this point.
> > >>
> > > ...
> > >>
> > >> For now, the above may work for the the rx part as it seems that you are
> > >> only enabling rx for dmabuf for now.
> > >>
> > >> What is the plan to enable tx for dmabuf? If it is also intergrated into
> > >> page_pool? There was a attempt to enable page_pool for tx, Eric seemed to
> > >> have some comment about this:
> > >> https://lkml.kernel.org/netdev/2cf4b672-d7dc-db3d-ce90-15b4e91c4005@huawei.com/T/#mb6ab62dc22f38ec621d516259c56dd66353e24a2
> > >>
> > >> If tx is not intergrated into page_pool, do we need to create a new layer for
> > >> the tx dmabuf?
> > >>
> > >
> > > I imagine the TX path will reuse page_pool_iov, page_pool_iov_*()
> > > helpers, and page_pool_page_*() helpers, but will not need any core
> > > page_pool changes. This is because the TX path will have to piggyback
> >
> > We may need another bit/flags checking to demux between page_pool owned
> > devmem and non-page_pool owned devmem.
> >
>
> The way I'm imagining the support, I don't see the need for such
> flags. We'd be re-using generic helpers like
> page_pool_iov_get_dma_address() and what not that don't need that
> checking.
>
> > Also calling page_pool_*() on non-page_pool owned devmem is confusing
> > enough that we may need a thin layer handling non-page_pool owned devmem
> > in the end.
> >
>
> The page_pool_page* & page_pool_iov* functions can be renamed if
> confusing. I would think that's no issue (note that the page_pool_*
> functions need not be called for TX path).
>
> > > on MSG_ZEROCOPY (devmem is not copyable), so no memory allocation from
> > > the page_pool (or otherwise) is needed or possible. RFCv1 had a TX
> > > implementation based on dmabuf pages without page_pool involvement, I
> > > imagine I'll do something similar.
> > It would be good to have a tx implementation for the next version, so
> > that we can have a whole picture of devmem.
> >
> > >
>
>
>
> --
> Thanks,
> Mina

--
Thanks,
Mina