Re: [PATCH] powerpc/mm/book3s/64: Rework page table geometry for lower memory usage

["Aneesh Kumar K.V" <aneesh.kumar@linux.vnet.ibm.com>]

On Tuesday 09 May 2017 01:35 PM, Michael Ellerman wrote:
> Recently in commit f6eedbba7a26 ("powerpc/mm/hash: Increase VA range to 128TB")
> we increased the virtual address space for user processes to 128TB by default,
> and up to 512TB if user space opts in.
>
> This obviously required expanding the range of the Linux page tables. For Book3s
> 64-bit using hash and with PAGE_SIZE=64K, we increased the PGD to 2^15 entries.
> This meant we could cover the full address range, while still being able to
> insert a 16G hugepage at the PGD level and a 16M hugepage in the PMD.
>
> The downside of that geometry is that it uses a lot of memory for the PGD, and
> in particular makes the PGD a 4-page allocation, which means it's much more
> likely to fail under memory pressure.
>
> Instead we can make the PMD larger, so that a single PUD entry maps 16G,
> allowing the 16G hugepages to sit at that level in the tree. We're then able to
> split the remaining bits between the PUG and PGD. We make the PGD slightly
> larger as that results in lower memory usage for typical programs.
>
> When THP is enabled the PMD actually doubles in size, to 2^11 entries, or 2^14
> bytes, which is large but still < PAGE_SIZE.
>

Reviewed-by: Aneesh Kumar K.V <aneesh.kumar@linux.vnet.ibm.com>

> Signed-off-by: Michael Ellerman <mpe@ellerman.id.au>
> ---
>  arch/powerpc/include/asm/book3s/64/hash-64k.h | 6 +++---
>  1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/arch/powerpc/include/asm/book3s/64/hash-64k.h b/arch/powerpc/include/asm/book3s/64/hash-64k.h
> index 214219dff87c..9732837aaae8 100644
> --- a/arch/powerpc/include/asm/book3s/64/hash-64k.h
> +++ b/arch/powerpc/include/asm/book3s/64/hash-64k.h
> @@ -2,9 +2,9 @@
>  #define _ASM_POWERPC_BOOK3S_64_HASH_64K_H
>
>  #define H_PTE_INDEX_SIZE  8
> -#define H_PMD_INDEX_SIZE  5
> -#define H_PUD_INDEX_SIZE  5
> -#define H_PGD_INDEX_SIZE  15
> +#define H_PMD_INDEX_SIZE  10
> +#define H_PUD_INDEX_SIZE  7
> +#define H_PGD_INDEX_SIZE  8
>
>  /*
>   * 64k aligned address free up few of the lower bits of RPN for us
>