Re: [PATCH v1 1/2] powerpc/pseries/hotplug-memory: stop checking is_mem_section_removable()

[Michal Hocko <mhocko@kernel.org>]

On Thu 09-04-20 10:12:20, David Hildenbrand wrote:
> On 09.04.20 09:59, Michal Hocko wrote:
> > On Thu 09-04-20 17:26:01, Michael Ellerman wrote:
> >> David Hildenbrand <david@redhat.com> writes:
> >>
> >>> In commit 53cdc1cb29e8 ("drivers/base/memory.c: indicate all memory
> >>> blocks as removable"), the user space interface to compute whether a memory
> >>> block can be offlined (exposed via
> >>> /sys/devices/system/memory/memoryX/removable) has effectively been
> >>> deprecated. We want to remove the leftovers of the kernel implementation.
> >>>
> >>> When offlining a memory block (mm/memory_hotplug.c:__offline_pages()),
> >>> we'll start by:
> >>> 1. Testing if it contains any holes, and reject if so
> >>> 2. Testing if pages belong to different zones, and reject if so
> >>> 3. Isolating the page range, checking if it contains any unmovable pages
> >>>
> >>> Using is_mem_section_removable() before trying to offline is not only racy,
> >>> it can easily result in false positives/negatives. Let's stop manually
> >>> checking is_mem_section_removable(), and let device_offline() handle it
> >>> completely instead. We can remove the racy is_mem_section_removable()
> >>> implementation next.
> >>>
> >>> We now take more locks (e.g., memory hotplug lock when offlining and the
> >>> zone lock when isolating), but maybe we should optimize that
> >>> implementation instead if this ever becomes a real problem (after all,
> >>> memory unplug is already an expensive operation). We started using
> >>> is_mem_section_removable() in commit 51925fb3c5c9 ("powerpc/pseries:
> >>> Implement memory hotplug remove in the kernel"), with the initial
> >>> hotremove support of lmbs.
> >>
> >> It's also not very pretty in dmesg.
> >>
> >> Before:
> >>
> >>   pseries-hotplug-mem: Attempting to hot-add 10 LMB(s)
> >>   pseries-hotplug-mem: Memory hot-add failed, removing any added LMBs
> >>   dlpar: Could not handle DLPAR request "memory add count 10"
> > 
> > Yeah, there is more output but isn't that useful? Or put it differently
> > what is the actual problem from having those messages in the kernel log?
> > 
> > From the below you can clearly tell that there are kernel allocations
> > which prevent hot remove from happening.
> > 
> > If the overall size of the debugging output is a concern then we can
> > think of a way to reduce it. E.g. once you have a couple of pages
> > reported then all others from the same block are likely not interesting
> > much.
> > 
> 
> IIRC, we only report one page per block already. (and stop, as we
> detected something unmovable)

You are right.
-- 
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs