Re: [PATCH v10 10/13] mm: Document ZONE_DEVICE memory-model implications

Mike Rapoport
2019-06-20T12:30:30Z

On Tue, Jun 18, 2019 at 10:52:29PM -0700, Dan Williams wrote:
> Explain the general mechanisms of 'ZONE_DEVICE' pages and list the users
> of 'devm_memremap_pages()'.
>
> Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
> Reported-by: Mike Rapoport <rppt@linux.ibm.com>
> Signed-off-by: Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@intel.com>

With one nit below

Reviewed-by: Mike Rapoport <rppt@linux.ibm.com>

> ---
> Documentation/vm/memory-model.rst | 39 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> 1 file changed, 39 insertions(+)
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/vm/memory-model.rst b/Documentation/vm/memory-model.rst
> index 382f72ace1fc..e0af47e02e78 100644
> --- a/Documentation/vm/memory-model.rst
> +++ b/Documentation/vm/memory-model.rst
> @@ -181,3 +181,42 @@ that is eventually passed to vmemmap_populate() through a long chain
> of function calls. The vmemmap_populate() implementation may use the
> `vmem_altmap` along with :c:func:`altmap_alloc_block_buf` helper to
> allocate memory map on the persistent memory device.
> +
> +ZONE_DEVICE
> +===========
> +The `ZONE_DEVICE` facility builds upon `SPARSEMEM_VMEMMAP` to offer
> +`struct page` `mem_map` services for device driver identified physical
> +address ranges. The "device" aspect of `ZONE_DEVICE` relates to the fact
> +that the page objects for these address ranges are never marked online,
> +and that a reference must be taken against the device, not just the page
> +to keep the memory pinned for active use. `ZONE_DEVICE`, via
> +:c:func:`devm_memremap_pages`, performs just enough memory hotplug to
> +turn on :c:func:`pfn_to_page`, :c:func:`page_to_pfn`, and
> +:c:func:`get_user_pages` service for the given range of pfns. Since the
> +page reference count never drops below 1 the page is never tracked as
> +free memory and the page's `struct list_head lru` space is repurposed
> +for back referencing to the host device / driver that mapped the memory.
> +
> +While `SPARSEMEM` presents memory as a collection of sections,
> +optionally collected into memory blocks, `ZONE_DEVICE` users have a need
> +for smaller granularity of populating the `mem_map`. Given that
> +`ZONE_DEVICE` memory is never marked online it is subsequently never
> +subject to its memory ranges being exposed through the sysfs memory
> +hotplug api on memory block boundaries. The implementation relies on
> +this lack of user-api constraint to allow sub-section sized memory
> +ranges to be specified to :c:func:`arch_add_memory`, the top-half of
> +memory hotplug. Sub-section support allows for `PMD_SIZE` as the minimum
> +alignment granularity for :c:func:`devm_memremap_pages`.
> +
> +The users of `ZONE_DEVICE` are:

Sphinx wants an empty line here:
/home/rapoport/git/linux-docs/Documentation/vm/memory-model.rst:213: ERROR:
Unexpected indentation.

> +* pmem: Map platform persistent memory to be used as a direct-I/O target
> + via DAX mappings.
> +
> +* hmm: Extend `ZONE_DEVICE` with `->page_fault()` and `->page_free()`
> + event callbacks to allow a device-driver to coordinate memory management
> + events related to device-memory, typically GPU memory. See
> + Documentation/vm/hmm.rst.
> +
> +* p2pdma: Create `struct page` objects to allow peer devices in a
> + PCI/-E topology to coordinate direct-DMA operations between themselves,
> + i.e. bypass host memory.
>

--
Sincerely yours,
Mike.