Re: [PATCH v4 5/6] mm: vmscan: Avoid split during shrink_folio_list()

[Ryan Roberts <ryan.roberts@arm.com>]

Hi Yin Fengwei,

On 15/03/2024 11:12, David Hildenbrand wrote:
> On 15.03.24 11:49, Ryan Roberts wrote:
>> On 15/03/2024 10:43, David Hildenbrand wrote:
>>> On 11.03.24 16:00, Ryan Roberts wrote:
>>>> Now that swap supports storing all mTHP sizes, avoid splitting large
>>>> folios before swap-out. This benefits performance of the swap-out path
>>>> by eliding split_folio_to_list(), which is expensive, and also sets us
>>>> up for swapping in large folios in a future series.
>>>>
>>>> If the folio is partially mapped, we continue to split it since we want
>>>> to avoid the extra IO overhead and storage of writing out pages
>>>> uneccessarily.
>>>>
>>>> Signed-off-by: Ryan Roberts <ryan.roberts@arm.com>
>>>> ---
>>>>    mm/vmscan.c | 9 +++++----
>>>>    1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)
>>>>
>>>> diff --git a/mm/vmscan.c b/mm/vmscan.c
>>>> index cf7d4cf47f1a..0ebec99e04c6 100644
>>>> --- a/mm/vmscan.c
>>>> +++ b/mm/vmscan.c
>>>> @@ -1222,11 +1222,12 @@ static unsigned int shrink_folio_list(struct list_head
>>>> *folio_list,
>>>>                        if (!can_split_folio(folio, NULL))
>>>>                            goto activate_locked;
>>>>                        /*
>>>> -                     * Split folios without a PMD map right
>>>> -                     * away. Chances are some or all of the
>>>> -                     * tail pages can be freed without IO.
>>>> +                     * Split partially mapped folios map
>>>> +                     * right away. Chances are some or all
>>>> +                     * of the tail pages can be freed
>>>> +                     * without IO.
>>>>                         */
>>>> -                    if (!folio_entire_mapcount(folio) &&
>>>> +                    if (!list_empty(&folio->_deferred_list) &&
>>>>                            split_folio_to_list(folio,
>>>>                                    folio_list))
>>>>                            goto activate_locked;
>>>
>>> Not sure if we might have to annotate that with data_race().
>>
>> I asked that exact question to Matthew in another context bt didn't get a
>> response. There are examples of checking if the deferred list is empty with and
>> without data_race() in the code base. But list_empty() is implemented like this:
>>
>> static inline int list_empty(const struct list_head *head)
>> {
>>     return READ_ONCE(head->next) == head;
>> }
>>
>> So I assumed the READ_ONCE() makes everything safe without a lock? Perhaps not
>> sufficient for KCSAN?
> 
> Yeah, there is only one use of data_race with that list.
> 
> It was added in f3ebdf042df4 ("THP: avoid lock when check whether THP is in
> deferred list").
> 
> Looks like that was added right in v1 of that change [1], so my best guess is
> that it is not actually required.
> 
> If not required, likely we should just cleanup the single user.
> 
> [1]
> https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/20230417075643.3287513-2-fengwei.yin@intel.com/

Do you have any recollection of why you added the data_race() markup?

Thanks,
Ryan

>