Re: [RFC PATCH v5 4/8] mm: tlb: Pass struct mmu_gather to flush_pmd_tlb_range

Zhenyu Ye
2020-04-03T05:14:39Z

Hi Peter,

On 2020/4/3 0:38, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 02, 2020 at 07:24:04PM +0800, Zhenyu Ye wrote:
>> Thanks for your detailed explanation. I notice that you used
>> `tlb_end_vma` replace `flush_tlb_range`, which will call `tlb_flush`,
>> then finally call `flush_tlb_range` in generic code. However, some
>> architectures define tlb_end_vma|tlb_flush|flush_tlb_range themselves,
>> so this may cause problems.
>>
>> For example, in s390, it defines:
>>
>> #define tlb_end_vma(tlb, vma) do { } while (0)
>>
>> And it doesn't define it's own flush_pmd_tlb_range(). So there will be
>> a mistake if we changed flush_pmd_tlb_range() using tlb_end_vma().
>>
>> Is this really a problem or something I understand wrong ?
>
> If tlb_end_vma() is a no-op, then tlb_finish_mmu() will do:
> tlb_flush_mmu() -> tlb_flush_mmu_tlbonly() -> tlb_flush()
>
> And s390 has tlb_flush().
>
> If tlb_end_vma() is not a no-op and it calls tlb_flush_mmu_tlbonly(),
> then tlb_finish_mmu()'s invocation of tlb_flush_mmu_tlbonly() will
> terniate early due o no flags set.
>
> IOW, it should all just work.
>
>
> FYI the whole tlb_{start,end}_vma() thing is a only needed when the
> architecture doesn't implement tlb_flush() and instead default to using
> flush_tlb_range(), at which point we need to provide a 'fake' vma.
>
> At the time I audited all architectures and they only look at VM_EXEC
> (to do $I invalidation) and VM_HUGETLB (for pmd level invalidations),
> but I forgot which architectures that were.

Many architectures, such as alpha, arc, arm and so on.
I really understand why you hate making vma->vm_flags more important for
tlbi :).

> But that is all legacy code; eventually we'll get all archs a native
> tlb_flush() and this can go away.
>

Thanks for your reply. Currently, to enable the TTL feature, extending
the flush_*tlb_range() may be more convenient.
I will send a formal PATCH soon.

Thanks,
Zhenyu