Re: [LSF/MM TOPIC] Memory hotplug, ZONE_DEVICE, and the future of struct page

[Jerome Glisse <jglisse@redhat.com>]

On Thu, Jan 12, 2017 at 02:43:03PM -0800, Dan Williams wrote:
> Back when we were first attempting to support DMA for DAX mappings of
> persistent memory the plan was to forgo 'struct page' completely and
> develop a pfn-to-scatterlist capability for the dma-mapping-api. That
> effort died in this thread:
> 
>     https://lkml.org/lkml/2015/8/14/3
> 
> ...where we learned that the dependencies on struct page for dma
> mapping are deeper than a PFN_PHYS() conversion for some
> architectures. That was the moment we pivoted to ZONE_DEVICE and
> arranged for a 'struct page' to be available for any persistent memory
> range that needs to be the target of DMA. ZONE_DEVICE enables any
> device-driver that can target "System RAM" to also be able to target
> persistent memory through a DAX mapping.
> 
> Since that time the "page-less" DAX path has continued to mature [1]
> without growing new dependencies on struct page, but at the same time
> continuing to rely on ZONE_DEVICE to satisfy get_user_pages().
> 
> Peer-to-peer DMA appears to be evolving from a niche embedded use case
> to something general purpose platforms will need to comprehend. The
> "map_peer_resource" [2] approach looks to be headed to the same
> destination as the pfn-to-scatterlist effort. It's difficult to avoid
> 'struct page' for describing DMA operations without custom driver
> code.
> 
> With that background, a statement and a question to discuss at LSF/MM:
> 
> General purpose DMA, i.e. any DMA setup through the dma-mapping-api,
> requires pfn_to_page() support across the entire physical address
> range mapped.

Note that in my case it is even worse. The pfn of the page does not
correspond to anything so it need to go through a special function
to find if a page can be mapped for another device and to provide a
valid pfn at which the page can be access by other device.

Basicly the PCIE bar is like a window into the device memory that is
dynamicly remap to specific page of the device memory. Not all device
memory can be expose through PCIE bar because of PCIE issues.

> 
> Is ZONE_DEVICE the proper vehicle for this? We've already seen that it
> collides with platform alignment assumptions [3], and if there's a
> wider effort to rework memory hotplug [4] it seems DMA support should
> be part of the discussion.

Obvioulsy i would like to join this discussion :)

Cheers,
Jerome

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