Re: [PATCH v3] mm: shmem: always support large folios for internal shmem mount

Baolin Wang
2026-04-17T09:27:53Z

On 4/17/26 5:21 PM, David Hildenbrand (Arm) wrote:
> On 4/17/26 05:25, Baolin Wang wrote:
>> Currently, when shmem mounts are initialized, they only use 'sbinfo->huge' to
>> determine whether the shmem mount supports large folios. However, for anonymous
>> shmem, whether it supports large folios can be dynamically configured via sysfs
>> interfaces, so setting or not setting mapping_set_large_folios() during initialization
>> cannot accurately reflect whether anonymous shmem actually supports large folios,
>> which has already caused some confusion[1].
>>
>> As discussed with David[2], for anonymous shmem we can treat it as always potentially
>> having large folios. Therefore, always support large folios for the internal shmem
>> mount (e.g., anonymous shmem), and which large order allocations are allowed can be
>> configured dynamically via the 'shmem_enabled' interfaces.
>>
>> [1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/ec927492-4577-4192-8fad-85eb1bb43121@linux.alibaba.com/
>> [2] https://lore.kernel.org/all/875dc63b-0cd2-49e5-8b0d-3fb062789813@kernel.org/
>> Signed-off-by: Baolin Wang <baolin.wang@linux.alibaba.com>
>> ---
>> Changes from v2:
>> - Always support large folios for internal shmem mount, per David.
>> Changes from v1:
>> - Update the comments and commit message, per Lance.
>> ---
>> mm/shmem.c | 13 +++++++++++--
>> 1 file changed, 11 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
>>
>> diff --git a/mm/shmem.c b/mm/shmem.c
>> index 4ecefe02881d..769ef37b1ea9 100644
>> --- a/mm/shmem.c
>> +++ b/mm/shmem.c
>> @@ -3088,8 +3088,17 @@ static struct inode *__shmem_get_inode(struct mnt_idmap *idmap,
>> if (sbinfo->noswap)
>> mapping_set_unevictable(inode->i_mapping);
>>
>> - /* Don't consider 'deny' for emergencies and 'force' for testing */
>> - if (sbinfo->huge)
>> + /*
>> + * Always support large folios for the internal shmem mount (e.g.,
>> + * anonymous shmem), and which large order allocations are allowed
>> + * can be configured dynamically via the 'shmem_enabled' interfaces.
>> + *
>> + * For tmpfs, honour the 'huge=' mount option to determine whether
>> + * large folios are supported.
>> + *
>> + * Note: don't consider 'deny' for emergencies and 'force' for testing.
>> + */
>> + if (sbinfo->huge || (sb->s_flags & SB_KERNMOUNT))
>> mapping_set_large_folios(inode->i_mapping);
>
> Two questions from a non-fs person about the semantics here:
>
> a) Can sbinfo->huge be triggered later, for example, through a remount
> (staring at shmem_reconfigure())

For tmpfs, yes.

> b) Do we cover all cases with the SB_KERNMOUNT where sbinfo->huge cannot
> be changed later?

For mounts with the SB_KERNMOUNT flag set, which is essentially the
internal shmem mount, as we discussed, we don't care about sbinfo->huge.
Because for the internal shmem mount, we always consider it as
potentially having large folios.