Re: How to use huge pages in drivers?

Matthew Wilcox
2019-09-04T17:50:40Z

On Wed, Sep 04, 2019 at 07:00:56PM +0200, Dominique Martinet wrote:
> Dominique Martinet wrote on Tue, Sep 03, 2019:
> > Matthew Wilcox wrote on Tue, Sep 03, 2019:
> > > > What I'd like to know is:
> > > > - we know (assuming the other side isn't too bugged, but if it is we're
> > > > fucked up anyway) exactly what huge-page-sized physical memory range has
> > > > been mapped on the other side, is there a way to manually gather the
> > > > pages corresponding and merge them into a huge page?
> > >
> > > You're using the word 'page' here, but I suspect what you really mean is
> > > "pfn" or "pte". As you've described it, it doesn't matter what data structure
> > > Linux is using for the memory, since Linux doesn't know about the memory.
> >
> > Correct, we're already using vmf_insert_pfn
>
> Actually let me take that back, vmf_insert_pfn is only used if
> pfn_valid() is false, probably as a safeguard of sort(?).
> The normal case went with pfn_to_page(pfn) + vm_insert_page() so, as
> things stands.
> I do have a few more questions if you could humor me a bit more...
>
> - the vma was created with a vm_flags including VM_MIXEDMAP for some
> reason, I don't know why.
> If I change it to VM_PFNMAP (which sounds better here from the little I
> understand of this as we do not need cow and looks a bit simpler?), I
> can remove the vm_insert_page() path and use the vmf_insert_pfn one
> instead, which appears to work fine for simple programs... But the
> kernel thread for my network adapter (bxi... which is not upstream
> either I guess.. sigh..) no longer tries to fault via my custom .fault
> vm operation... Which means I probably did need MIXEDMAP ?

Strange ... PFNMAP absolutely should try to fault via the ->fault
vm operation (although see below)

> - ignoring that for now (it's not like I need to switch to PFNMAP);
> adding vmf_insert_pfn_pmd() for when the remote side uses large pages,
> it complains that the vmf->pmd is not a pmd_none nor huge nor a devmap
> (this check appears specific to rhel7 kernel, I could temporarily test
> with an upstream kernel but the network adapter won't work there so I'll
> need this to work on this ultimately)
>
> It looks like handle_mm_fault() will always try to allocate a pmd so it
> should never be empty in my fault handler, and I don't see anything else
> than vmf_insert_pfn_pmd() setting the mkdevmap flag, and it's not huge
> either...
> (on a dump, the the pmd content is 175cb18067, so these flags according
> to crash for x86_64 are (PRESENT|RW|USER|ACCESSED|DIRTY))
>
> I tried adding a huge_fault vm op thinking it might be called with a
> more appropriate pmd but it doesn't seem to be called at all in my
> case..? I would have assumed from the code that it would try every page

You shouldn't be calling vmf_insert_pfn_pmd() from a regular ->fault
handler, as by then the fault handler has already inserted a PMD.
The ->huge_fault handler is the place to call it from.

You may need to force PMD-alignment for your call to mmap().

> Long story short, I think I have some deeper undestanding problem about
> the whole thing. Do I also need to use some specific flags when that
> special file is mmap'd to allow huge_fault to be called ?
> I think transparent_hugepage_enabled(vma) is fine, but the vmf.pmd found
> in __handle_mm_fault is probably already not none at this point...?
>
> Thanks again, feel free to ignore me for a bit longer I'll keep digging
> my own grave, writing to a rubber duck that might have an idea of how
> far the wrong way I've gone already helps... :D

Hope these pointers are slightly more useful than a rubber duck ;-)