Re: [RFC PATCH 7/8] hugetlb: add update_and_free_page_no_sleep for irq context

Peter Zijlstra
2021-03-22T08:42:23Z

On Fri, Mar 19, 2021 at 03:42:08PM -0700, Mike Kravetz wrote:
> The locks acquired in free_huge_page are irq safe. However, in certain
> circumstances the routine update_and_free_page could sleep. Since
> free_huge_page can be called from any context, it can not sleep.
>
> Use a waitqueue to defer freeing of pages if the operation may sleep. A
> new routine update_and_free_page_no_sleep provides this functionality
> and is only called from free_huge_page.
>
> Note that any 'pages' sent to the workqueue for deferred freeing have
> already been removed from the hugetlb subsystem. What is actually
> deferred is returning those base pages to the low level allocator.

So maybe I'm stupid, but why do you need that work in hugetlb? Afaict it
should be in cma_release().

Also, afaict cma_release() does free_contig_range() *first*, and then
does the 'difficult' bits. So how about you re-order
free_gigantic_page() a bit to make it unconditionally do
free_contig_range() and *then* call into CMA, which can then do a
workqueue thingy if it feels like it.

That way none of the hugetlb accounting is delayed, and only CMA gets to
suffer.