Re: [PATCH v10 00/13] khugepaged: mTHP support

Nico Pache
2025-09-04T02:45:18Z

On Thu, Aug 21, 2025 at 10:55 AM Lorenzo Stoakes
<lorenzo.stoakes@oracle.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Aug 21, 2025 at 10:46:18AM -0600, Nico Pache wrote:
> > > > > > Thanks and I"ll have a look, but this series is unmergeable with a broken
> > > > > > default in
> > > > > > /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/khugepaged/mthp_max_ptes_none_ratio
> > > > > > sorry.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > We need to have a new tunable as far as I can tell. I also find the use of
> > > > > > this PMD-specific value as an arbitrary way of expressing a ratio pretty
> > > > > > gross.
> > > > > The first thing that comes to mind is that we can pin max_ptes_none to
> > > > > 255 if it exceeds 255. It's worth noting that the issue occurs only
> > > > > for adjacently enabled mTHP sizes.
> > >
> > > No! Presumably the default of 511 (for PMDs with 512 entries) is set for a
> > > reason, arbitrarily changing this to suit a specific case seems crazy no?
> > We wouldn't be changing it for PMD collapse, just for the new
> > behavior. At 511, no mTHP collapses would ever occur anyways, unless
> > you have 2MB disabled and other mTHP sizes enabled. Technically at 511
> > only the highest enabled order always gets collapsed.
> >
> > Ive also argued in the past that 511 is a terrible default for
> > anything other than thp.enabled=always, but that's a whole other can
> > of worms we dont need to discuss now.
> >
> > with this cap of 255, the PMD scan/collapse would work as intended,
> > then in mTHP collapses we would never introduce this undesired
> > behavior. We've discussed before that this would be a hard problem to
> > solve without introducing some expensive way of tracking what has
> > already been through a collapse, and that doesnt even consider what
> > happens if things change or are unmapped, and rescanning that section
> > would be helpful. So having a strictly enforced limit of 255 actually
> > seems like a good idea to me, as it completely avoids the undesired
> > behavior and does not require the admins to be aware of such an issue.
> >
> > Another thought similar to what (IIRC) Dev has mentioned before, if we
> > have max_ptes_none > 255 then we only consider collapses to the
> > largest enabled order, that way no creep to the largest enabled order
> > would occur in the first place, and we would get there straight away.
> >
> > To me one of these two solutions seem sane in the context of what we
> > are dealing with.
> > >
> > > > >
> > > > > ie)
> > > > > if order!=HPAGE_PMD_ORDER && khugepaged_max_ptes_none > 255
> > > > > temp_max_ptes_none = 255;
> > > > Oh and my second point, introducing a new tunable to control mTHP
> > > > collapse may become exceedingly complex from a tuning and code
> > > > management standpoint.
> > >
> > > Umm right now you hve a ratio expressed in PTES per mTHP * ((PTEs per PMD) /
> > > PMD) 'except please don't set to the usual default when using mTHP' and it's
> > > currently default-broken.
> > >
> > > I'm really not sure how that is simpler than a seprate tunable that can be
> > > expressed as a ratio (e.g. percentage) that actually makes some kind of sense?
> > I agree that the current tunable wasn't designed for this, but we
> > tried to come up with something that leverages the tunable we have to
> > avoid new tunables and added complexity.
> > >
> > > And we can make anything workable from a code management point of view by
> > > refactoring/developing appropriately.
> > What happens if max_ptes_none = 0 and the ratio is 50% - 1 pte
> > (ideally the max number)? seems like we would be saying we want no new
> > none pages, but also to allow new none pages. To me that seems equally
> > broken and more confusing than just taking a scale of the current
> > number (now with a cap).
> >
> >
>
> The one thing we absolutely cannot have is a default that causes this
> 'creeping' behaviour. This feels like shipping something that is broken and
> alluding to it in the documentation.
Ok I've put a lot of thought and time into this and came up with a solution.

Here is what I currently have tested and would like to proposing:

- Expand bitmap to HPAGE_PMD_NR (512)*, this increases the accuracy of
the max_pte_none handling, and removes a lot of inaccuracies caused by
the compression into 128 bits that was being done. This also makes the
code a lot easier to understand.

- When attempting mTHP level collapses cap max_ptes_none to 255 to
prevent the creep issue

Ive tested this and found this performs better than my previous
version, allows for more granular control via max_ptes_none, and
prevents the creep issue without any admin knowledge needed.

I think this is a good middle ground between completely disabling the
fine tune control, and doing a better job at mitigating
misconfiguration.

**Baolin actually also expands the bitmap to 512 in his khugepaged
collapse file mTHP support patchset

Does this sound reasonable to you?

-- Nico
>
> I spoke to David off-list and he gave some insight into this and perhaps
> some reasonable means of avoiding an additional tunable.
>
> I don't want to rehash what he said as I think it's more productive for him
> to reply when he has time but broadly I think how we handle this needs
> careful consideration.
>
> To me it's clear that some sense of ratio is just immediately very very
> confusing, but then again this interface is already confusing, as with much
> of THP.
>
> Anyway I'll let David respond here so we don't loop around before he has a
> chance to add his input.
>
> Cheers, Lorenzo
>