Re: [PATCH 9/9] mm, page_alloc: optionally disable pcplists during page isolation

Vlastimil Babka
2020-09-25T11:23:55Z

On 9/25/20 12:54 PM, David Hildenbrand wrote:
>>> --- a/mm/page_isolation.c
>>> +++ b/mm/page_isolation.c
>>> @@ -15,6 +15,22 @@
>>> #define CREATE_TRACE_POINTS
>>> #include <trace/events/page_isolation.h>
>>>
>>> +void zone_pcplist_disable(struct zone *zone)
>>> +{
>>> + down_read(&pcp_batch_high_lock);
>>> + if (atomic_inc_return(&zone->pcplist_disabled) == 1) {
>>> + zone_update_pageset_high_and_batch(zone, 0, 1);
>>> + __drain_all_pages(zone, true);
>>> + }
>> Hm, if one CPU is still inside the if-clause, the other one would
>> continue, however pcp wpould not be disabled and zones not drained when
>> returning.

Ah, well spotted, thanks!

>> (while we only allow a single Offline_pages() call, it will be different
>> when we use the function in other context - especially,
>> alloc_contig_range() for some users)
>>
>> Can't we use down_write() here? So it's serialized and everybody has to
>> properly wait. (and we would not have to rely on an atomic_t)
> Sorry, I meant down_write only temporarily in this code path. Not
> keeping it locked in write when returning (I remember there is a way to
> downgrade).

Hmm that temporary write lock would still block new callers until previous
finish with the downgraded-to-read lock.

But I guess something like this would work:

retry:
if (atomic_read(...) == 0) {
// zone_update... + drain
atomic_inc(...);
else if (atomic_inc_return == 1)
// atomic_cmpxchg from 0 to 1; if that fails, goto retry

Tricky, but races could only read to unnecessary duplicated updates + flushing
but nothing worse?

Or add another spinlock to cover this part instead of the temp write lock...