Re: [PATCH v10 00/12] LUF(Lazy Unmap Flush) reducing tlb numbers over 90%

Byungchul Park
2024-05-30T01:33:31Z

On Thu, May 30, 2024 at 09:11:45AM +0800, Huang, Ying wrote:
> Byungchul Park <byungchul@sk.com> writes:
>
> > On Wed, May 29, 2024 at 09:41:22AM -0700, Dave Hansen wrote:
> >> On 5/28/24 22:00, Byungchul Park wrote:
> >> > All the code updating ptes already performs TLB flush needed in a safe
> >> > way if it's inevitable e.g. munmap. LUF which controls when to flush in
> >> > a higer level than arch code, just leaves stale ro tlb entries that are
> >> > currently supposed to be in use. Could you give a scenario that you are
> >> > concering?
> >>
> >> Let's go back this scenario:
> >>
> >> fd = open("/some/file", O_RDONLY);
> >> ptr1 = mmap(-1, size, PROT_READ, ..., fd, ...);
> >> foo1 = *ptr1;
> >>
> >> There's a read-only PTE at 'ptr1'. Right? The page being pointed to is
> >> eligible for LUF via the try_to_unmap() paths. In other words, the page
> >> might be reclaimed at any time. If it is reclaimed, the PTE will be
> >> cleared.
> >>
> >> Then, the user might do:
> >>
> >> munmap(ptr1, PAGE_SIZE);
> >>
> >> Which will _eventually_ wind up in the zap_pte_range() loop. But that
> >> loop will only see pte_none(). It doesn't do _anything_ to the 'struct
> >> mmu_gather'.
> >>
> >> The munmap() then lands in tlb_flush_mmu_tlbonly() where it looks at the
> >> 'struct mmu_gather':
> >>
> >> if (!(tlb->freed_tables || tlb->cleared_ptes ||
> >> tlb->cleared_pmds || tlb->cleared_puds ||
> >> tlb->cleared_p4ds))
> >> return;
> >>
> >> But since there were no cleared PTEs (or anything else) during the
> >> unmap, this just returns and doesn't flush the TLB.
> >>
> >> We now have an address space with a stale TLB entry at 'ptr1' and not
> >> even a VMA there. There's nothing to stop a new VMA from going in,
> >> installing a *new* PTE, but getting data from the stale TLB entry that
> >> still hasn't been flushed.
> >
> > Thank you for the explanation. I got you. I think I could handle the
> > case through a new flag in vma or something indicating LUF has deferred
> > necessary TLB flush for it during unmapping so that mmu_gather mechanism
> > can be aware of it. Of course, the performance change should be checked
> > again. Thoughts?
>
> I suggest you to start with the simple case. That is, only support page
> reclaiming and migration. A TLB flushing can be enforced during unmap
> with something similar as flush_tlb_batched_pending().

Right. I'm thinking to add a related code to flush_tlb_batched_pending().

Byungchul

> --
> Best Regards,
> Huang, Ying