Re: [PATCH 4/5] Hot-remove implementation for arm64

Andrea Reale
2017-04-21T10:02:55Z

Hi all,

Thanks Mark, Ard and Laura for your comments. Replies in-line.

On Tue, Apr 18, 2017 at 07:21:26PM +0100, Mark Rutland wrote:
[...]
> >
> > The name direct is inherited directly from the x86_64 hot remove code.
> > It serves to distinguish if we are removing either a pagetable page that
> > is mapping to the direct mapping space (I think it is called also linear
> > mapping area somewhere else) or a pagetable page or a data page
> > from vmemmap.
>
> FWIW, I've largely heard the folk call that the "linear mapping", and
> x86 folk call that the "direct mapping". The two are interchangeable.
>

Thanks for the clarification; We'll just call it "linear mapping" then.

> > In this specific set of functions, the flag is needed because the various
> > alloc_init_p*d used for allocating entries for direct memory mapping
> > rely on pgd_pgtable_alloc, which in its turn calls pgtable_page_ctor;
> > hence, we need to call the dtor.
>
> AFAICT, that's not true for the arm64 linear map, since that's created
> with our early_pgtable_alloc(), which doesn't call pgtable_page_ctor().
>
> Judging by commit:
>
> 1378dc3d4ba07ccd ("arm64: mm: run pgtable_page_ctor() on non-swapper
> translation table pages")
>
> ... we only do this for non-swapper page tables.
>
> > On the contrary, vmemmap entries are created using vmemmap_alloc_block
> > (from within vmemmap_populate), which does not call pgtable_page_ctor
> > when allocating pages.
> >
> > I am not sure I understand why the pgtable_page_ctor is not called when
> > allocating vmemmap page tables, but that's the current situation.
>
> From a quick scan, I see that it's necessary to use pgtable_page_ctor()
> for pages that will be used for userspace page tables, but it's not
> clear to me if it's ever necessary for pages used for kernel page
> tables.
>
> If it is, we appear to have a bug on arm64.
>
> Laura, Ard, thoughts?
>

More comments on that as a separate reply to Laura's and Ard's messages.

[...]

> >
> > I guess that the safe approach would be something along the lines:
> > 1. clear the page table
> > 2. flush the tlbs
> > 3. free the page
>
> Yes. That's the sequence we follow elsewhere.
>
> > When I am flushing intermediate p*d entries, would it be
> > more appropriate to use something like __flush_tlb_pgtable() to clear
> > cached partial walks rather than flushing the whole table? I mean,
> > hot-remove is not going to be a frequent operation anyway, so I don't
> > think that flushing the whole tlb would be a great deal of harm
> > anyway.
>
> Using __flush_tlb_pgtable() sounds sane to me. That's what we do when
> tearing down user mappings.
>
> > My question at this point would be: how come that the code structure above
> > works for x86_64 hot-remove?
>
> I don't know enough about x86 to say.
>
> > My assumption, when I was writing this, was
> > that there would be no problem since this code is called when we are sure
> > that all the memory mapped by these entries has been already offlined,
> > so nobody should be using those VAs anyway (also considering that there
> > cannot be any two mem hot-plug/remove actions running concurrently).
> > Is that correct?
>
> The problem is that speculation, Out-of-Order execution, HW prefetching,
> and other such things *can* result in those VAs being accessed,
> regardless of what code explicitly does in a sequential execution.
>
> If any table relevant to one of those VAs has been freed (and
> potentially modified by the allocator, or in another thread), it's
> possible that the CPU performs a page table walk and sees junk as a
> valid page table entry. As a result, a number of bad things can happen.
>
> If the entry was a pgd, pud, or pmd, the CPU may try to continue to walk
> to the relevant pte, accessing a junk address. That could change the
> state of MMIO, trigger an SError, etc, or allocate more junk into the
> TLBs.
>
> For any level, the CPU might allocate the entry into a TLB, regardless
> of whether an existing entry existed. The new entry can conflict with
> the existing one, either leading to a TLB conflict abort, or to the TLB
> returning junk for that address. Speculation and so on can now access
> junk based on that, etc.
>
> [...]
>

Thanks, we'll just clear it the proper way.

[...]

> > > > +
> > > > + if (!pte_present(*pte))
> > > > + continue;
> > > > +
> > > > + if (PAGE_ALIGNED(addr) && PAGE_ALIGNED(next)) {
> > >
> > > When would those addresses *not* be page-aligned? By construction, next
> > > must be. Unplugging partial pages of memory makes no sense, so surely
> > > addr is page-aligned when passed in?
> >
> > The issue here is that this function is called in one of two cases:
> > 1. to clear pagetables of directly mapped (linear) memory
> > 2. Pagetables (and corresponding data pages) for vmemmap.
> >
> > It is my understanding that, in the second case, we might be clearing
> > only part of the page content (i.e, only a few struct pages). Note that
> > next is page aligned by construction only if next <= end.
>
> Ok. A comment to that effect immediately above this check would be
> helpful.
>

Ok, thanks.

> > > > + /*
> > > > + * Do not free direct mapping pages since they were
> > > > + * freed when offlining, or simplely not in use.
> > > > + */
> > > > + if (!direct)
> > > > + free_pagetable(pte_page(*pte), 0, direct);
> > > > +
> > > > + /*
> > > > + * This spin lock could be only
> > > > + * taken in _pte_aloc_kernel in
> > > > + * mm/memory.c and nowhere else
> > > > + * (for arm64). Not sure if the
> > > > + * function above can be called
> > > > + * concurrently. In doubt,
> > > > + * I am living it here for now,
> > > > + * but it probably can be removed.
> > > > + */
> > > > + spin_lock(&init_mm.page_table_lock);
> > > > + pte_clear(&init_mm, addr, pte);
> > > > + spin_unlock(&init_mm.page_table_lock);
> > > > + } else {
> > > > + /*
> > > > + * If we are here, we are freeing vmemmap pages since
> > > > + * direct mapped memory ranges to be freed are aligned.
> > > > + *
> > > > + * If we are not removing the whole page, it means
> > > > + * other page structs in this page are being used and
> > > > + * we canot remove them. So fill the unused page_structs
> > > > + * with 0xFD, and remove the page when it is wholly
> > > > + * filled with 0xFD.
> > > > + */
> > > > + memset((void *)addr, PAGE_INUSE, next - addr);
> > >
> > > What's special about 0xFD?
> >
> > Just used it as a constant symmetrically to x86_64 code.
> >
> > > Why do we need to mess with the page array in this manner? Why can't we
> > > detect when a range is free by querying memblock, for example?
> >
> > I am not sure I get your suggestion. I guess that the logic here
> > is that I cannot be sure that I can free the full page because other
> > entries might be in use for active vmemmap mappings. So we just "mark"
> > the unused once and only free the page when all of it is marked. See
> > again commit ae9aae9eda2db71, where all this comes from.
>
> I understood that this is deferring freeing until a whole page of struct
> pages has been freed.
>
> My concern is that filling the unused memory with an array of junk chars
> feels like a hack. We don't do this at the edges when we allocate
> memblock today, AFAICT, so this doesn't seem complete.
>
> Is there no "real" datastructure we can use to keep track of what memory
> is present? e.g. memblock?
>
> [...]

We could add a MEMBLOCK_VMEMMAP_UNUSED flag in memblock and mark the
partially unused memblock range with that instead of using the 0xFD
hack. Eventually that might even be backported to x86. Is that what
you are suggesting? I am not confident we can reuse an existing flag
for the purpose without breaking something else.

[...]

> > > If that's the case, we'll *need* to split the pmd, which we can't do on
> > > live page tables.
> >
> > Please, see below.
> >
> > > > + if (!direct) {
> > > > + free_pagetable(pmd_page(*pmd),
> > > > + get_order(PMD_SIZE), direct);
> > > > + }
> > > > + /*
> > > > + * This spin lock could be only
> > > > + * taken in _pte_aloc_kernel in
> > > > + * mm/memory.c and nowhere else
> > > > + * (for arm64). Not sure if the
> > > > + * function above can be called
> > > > + * concurrently. In doubt,
> > > > + * I am living it here for now,
> > > > + * but it probably can be removed.
> > > > + */
> > > > + spin_lock(&init_mm.page_table_lock);
> > > > + pmd_clear(pmd);
> > > > + spin_unlock(&init_mm.page_table_lock);
> > > > + } else {
> > > > + /* If here, we are freeing vmemmap pages. */
> > > > + memset((void *)addr, PAGE_INUSE, next - addr);
> > > > +
> > > > + page_addr = page_address(pmd_page(*pmd));
> > > > + if (!memchr_inv(page_addr, PAGE_INUSE,
> > > > + PMD_SIZE)) {
> > > > + free_pagetable(pmd_page(*pmd),
> > > > + get_order(PMD_SIZE), direct);
> > > > +
> > > > + /*
> > > > + * This spin lock could be only
> > > > + * taken in _pte_aloc_kernel in
> > > > + * mm/memory.c and nowhere else
> > > > + * (for arm64). Not sure if the
> > > > + * function above can be called
> > > > + * concurrently. In doubt,
> > > > + * I am living it here for now,
> > > > + * but it probably can be removed.
> > > > + */
> > > > + spin_lock(&init_mm.page_table_lock);
> > > > + pmd_clear(pmd);
> > > > + spin_unlock(&init_mm.page_table_lock);
> > > > + }
> > >
> > > I don't think this is correct.
> > >
> > > If we're getting rid of a partial pmd, we *must* split the pmd.
> > > Otherwise, we're leaving bits mapped that should not be. If we split the
> > > pmd, we can free the individual pages as we would for a non-section
> > > mapping.
> > >
> > > As above, we can't split block entries within live tables, so that will
> > > be painful at best.
> > >
> > > If we can't split a pmd, hen we cannot free a partial pmd, and will need
> > > to reject request to do so.
> > >
> > > The same comments (with s/pmu/pud/, etc) apply for the higher level
> > > remove_p*d_table functions.
> > >
> > > [...]
> >
> > This only happens when we are clearing vmemmap memory.
>
> Is that definitely the case?
>
> Currently, I can't see what prevents adding 2M of memory, and then
> removing the first 4K of that. We'll use a 2M section for the linear map
> of that, but won't unmap the 4K when removing.
>
> Likewise for the next level up, with s/2M/1G/ and s/4K/2M/.
>

You're right. The confusion comes from the fact that we were only
considering the case where we are hot-removing memory that was previously
hot-added. In that case, the memory granularity of hot-add and hot-remove
is the same and fixed at compile time to get_memory_block_size() ==
1<<SECTION_SIZE_BITS (1GB by default).

In case we are removing memory that was in the linear mapping since boot,
then we might get in the situation you are describing above if someone has
manually changed SECTION_SIZE_BITS to a different value in sparsemem.h.
If not, I believe that the fact that we are removing one aligned GB per
shot should guarantee that we never have to split a PUD.

However, we should definitely handle all the cases. Since splitting a
P[UM]D might be a nightmare (if possible at all), two more or less clean
solutions I can think of are:
1. Only allow to hot-remove memory that was previously hot-added or,
2. Detect when we are trying to only partially remove a section mapped
area of the linear mapping and just fail (and roll back) the remove
process.

I think I prefer no. 2; it has the advantage of not forbidding a-priori
to remove non-hot-added memory; and its only disadvantage is that in some
(uncommon?) cases you would be just forbidden to hot-remove some memory,
with no distructive side effects. What do you think?

[...]

> Thanks,
> Mark.
>

Thanks again and best regards,
Andrea