Re: [PATCH v3 02/15] mm: Batch-clear PTE ranges during zap_pte_range()

Ryan Roberts
2023-12-12T11:57:52Z

On 08/12/2023 01:30, Alistair Popple wrote:
>
> Ryan Roberts <ryan.roberts@arm.com> writes:
>
>> Convert zap_pte_range() to clear a set of ptes in a batch. A given batch
>> maps a physically contiguous block of memory, all belonging to the same
>> folio. This will likely improve performance by a tiny amount due to
>> removing duplicate calls to mark the folio dirty and accessed. And also
>> provides us with a future opportunity to batch the rmap removal.
>>
>> However, the primary motivation for this change is to reduce the number
>> of tlb maintenance operations that the arm64 backend has to perform
>> during exit and other syscalls that cause zap_pte_range() (e.g. munmap,
>> madvise(DONTNEED), etc.), as it is about to add transparent support for
>> the "contiguous bit" in its ptes. By clearing ptes using the new
>> clear_ptes() API, the backend doesn't have to perform an expensive
>> unfold operation when a PTE being cleared is part of a contpte block.
>> Instead it can just clear the whole block immediately.
>>
>> This change addresses the core-mm refactoring only, and introduces
>> clear_ptes() with a default implementation that calls
>> ptep_get_and_clear_full() for each pte in the range. Note that this API
>> returns the pte at the beginning of the batch, but with the dirty and
>> young bits set if ANY of the ptes in the cleared batch had those bits
>> set; this information is applied to the folio by the core-mm. Given the
>> batch is garranteed to cover only a single folio, collapsing this state
>
> Nit: s/garranteed/guaranteed/
>
>> does not lose any useful information.
>>
>> A separate change will implement clear_ptes() in the arm64 backend to
>> realize the performance improvement as part of the work to enable
>> contpte mappings.
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Ryan Roberts <ryan.roberts@arm.com>
>> ---
>> include/asm-generic/tlb.h | 9 ++++++
>> include/linux/pgtable.h | 26 ++++++++++++++++
>> mm/memory.c | 63 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++-------------
>> mm/mmu_gather.c | 14 +++++++++
>> 4 files changed, 92 insertions(+), 20 deletions(-)
>
> <snip>
>
>> diff --git a/mm/mmu_gather.c b/mm/mmu_gather.c
>> index 4f559f4ddd21..57b4d5f0dfa4 100644
>> --- a/mm/mmu_gather.c
>> +++ b/mm/mmu_gather.c
>> @@ -47,6 +47,20 @@ static bool tlb_next_batch(struct mmu_gather *tlb)
>> return true;
>> }
>>
>> +unsigned int tlb_get_guaranteed_space(struct mmu_gather *tlb)
>> +{
>> + struct mmu_gather_batch *batch = tlb->active;
>> + unsigned int nr_next = 0;
>> +
>> + /* Allocate next batch so we can guarrantee at least one batch. */
>> + if (tlb_next_batch(tlb)) {
>> + tlb->active = batch;
>
> Rather than calling tlb_next_batch(tlb) and then undoing some of what it
> does I think it would be clearer to factor out the allocation part of
> tlb_next_batch(tlb) into a separate function (eg. tlb_alloc_batch) that
> you can call from both here and tlb_next_batch().

As per my email against patch 1, I have some perf regressions to iron out for
microbenchmarks; one issue is that this code forces the allocation of a page for
a batch even when we are only modifying a single pte (which would previously fit
in the embedded batch). So I've renamed this function to tlb_reserve_space(int
nr). If it already has enough room, it will jsut return immediately. Else it
will keep calling tlb_next_batch() in a loop until space has been allocated.
Then after the loop we set tlb->active back to the original batch.

Given the new potential need to loop a couple of times, and the need to build up
that linked list, I think it works nicely without refactoring tlb_next_batch().

>
> Otherwise I think this overall direction looks better than trying to
> play funny games in the arch layer as it's much clearer what's going on
> to core-mm code.
>
> - Alistair
>
>> + nr_next = batch->next->max;
>> + }
>> +
>> + return batch->max - batch->nr + nr_next;
>> +}
>> +
>> #ifdef CONFIG_SMP
>> static void tlb_flush_rmap_batch(struct mmu_gather_batch *batch, struct vm_area_struct *vma)
>> {
>