Re: [linus:master] [mm] efa7df3e3b: kernel_BUG_at_include/linux/page_ref.h

David Hildenbrand
2024-06-03T21:01:41Z

On 03.06.24 22:44, Yang Shi wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 3, 2024 at 1:38 PM David Hildenbrand <david@redhat.com> wrote:
>>
>>>> try_get_folio() is all about grabbing a folio that might get freed
>>>> concurrently. That's why it calls folio_ref_try_add_rcu() and does
>>>> complicated stuff.
>>>
>>> IMHO we can define it.. e.g. try_get_page() wasn't defined as so.
>>>
>>> If we want to be crystal clear on that and if we think that's what we want,
>>> again I would suggest we rename it differently from try_get_page() to avoid
>>> future misuses, then add documents. We may want to also even assert the
>>
>> Yes, absolutely.
>>
>>> rcu/irq implications in try_get_folio() at entrance, then that'll be
>>> detected even without TINY_RCU config.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> On !CONFIG_TINY_RCU, it performs a folio_ref_add_unless(). That's
>>>> essentially a atomic_add_unless(), which in the worst case ends up being a
>>>> cmpxchg loop.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Stating that we should be using try_get_folio() in paths where we are sure
>>>> the folio refcount is not 0 is the same as using folio_try_get() where
>>>> folio_get() would be sufficient.
>>>>
>>>> The VM_BUG_ON in folio_ref_try_add_rcu() really tells us here that we are
>>>> using a function in the wrong context, although in our case, it is safe to
>>>> use (there is now BUG). Which is true, because we know we have a folio
>>>> reference and can simply use a simple folio_ref_add().
>>>>
>>>> Again, just like we have folio_get() and folio_try_get(), we should
>>>> distinguish in GUP whether we are adding more reference to a folio (and
>>>> effectively do what folio_get() would), or whether we are actually grabbing
>>>> a folio that could be freed concurrently (what folio_try_get() would do).
>>>
>>> Yes we can. Again, IMHO it's a matter of whether it will worth it.
>>>
>>> Note that even with SMP and even if we keep this code, the
>>> atomic_add_unless only affects gup slow on THP only, and even with that
>>> overhead it is much faster than before when that path was introduced.. and
>>> per my previous experience we don't care too much there, really.
>>>
>>> So it's literally only three paths that are relevant here on the "unless"
>>> overhead:
>>>
>>> - gup slow on THP (I just added it; used to be even slower..)
>>>
>>> - vivik's new path
>>>
>>> - hugepd (which may be gone for good in a few months..)
>>>
>>> IMHO none of them has perf concerns. The real perf concern paths is
>>> gup-fast when pgtable entry existed, but that must use atomic_add_unless()
>>> anyway. Even gup-slow !thp case won't regress as that uses try_get_page().
>>
>> My point is primarily that we should be clear that the one thing is
>> GUP-fast, and the other is for GUP-slow.
>>
>> Sooner or later we'll see more code that uses try_grab_page() to be
>> converted to folios, and people might naturally use try_grab_folio(),
>> just like we did with Vivik's code.
>>
>> And I don't think we'll want to make GUP-slow in general using
>> try_grab_folio() in the future.
>>
>> So ...
>>
>>>
>>> So again, IMHO the easist way to fix this WARN is we drop the TINY_RCU bit,
>>> if nobody worries on UP perf.
>>>
>>> I don't have a strong opinion, if any of us really worry about above three
>>> use cases on "unless" overhead, and think it worthwhile to add the code to
>>> support it, I won't object. But to me it's adding pain with no real benefit
>>> we could ever measure, and adding complexity to backport too since we'll
>>> need a fix for as old as 6.6.
>>
>> ... for the sake of fixing this WARN, I don't primarily care. Adjusting
>> the TINY_RCU feels wrong because I suspect somebody had good reasons to
>> do it like that, and it actually reported something valuable (using the
>> wrong function for the job).
>
> I think this is the major concern about what fix we should do. If that
> tiny rcu optimization still makes sense and is useful, we'd better
> keep it. But I can't tell. Leaving it as is may be safer.

Willy moved that code in 020853b6f5e and I think it dates back to e286781d5f2e.

That contained:

+ /*
+ * Preempt must be disabled here - we rely on rcu_read_lock doing
+ * this for us.
+ *
+ * Pagecache won't be truncated from interrupt context, so if we have
+ * found a page in the radix tree here, we have pinned its refcount by
+ * disabling preempt, and hence no need for the "speculative get" that
+ * SMP requires.
+ */
+ VM_BUG_ON(page_count(page) == 0);
+ atomic_inc(&page->_count);
+

--
Cheers,

David / dhildenb