Re: [PATCH 0/2 v6] add ioctl/sysfs to donate file-backed pages

Matthew Wilcox
2025-02-10T17:20:16Z

On Mon, Feb 10, 2025 at 05:00:47PM +0000, Jaegeuk Kim wrote:
> On 02/04, Jaegeuk Kim wrote:
> > On 01/17, Jaegeuk Kim wrote:
> > > On 01/17, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> > > > On Fri, Jan 17, 2025 at 06:48:55PM +0000, Jaegeuk Kim wrote:
> > > > > > I don't understand how this is different from MADV_COLD. Please
> > > > > > explain.
> > > > >
> > > > > MADV_COLD is a vma range, while this is a file range. So, it's more close to
> > > > > fadvise(POSIX_FADV_DONTNEED) which tries to reclaim the file-backed pages
> > > > > at the time when it's called. The idea is to keep the hints only, and try to
> > > > > reclaim all later when admin expects system memory pressure soon.
> > > >
> > > > So you're saying you want POSIX_FADV_COLD?
> > >
> > > Yeah, the intention looks similar like marking it cold and paging out later.
> >
> > Kindly ping, for the feedback on the direction. If there's demand for something
> > generalized api, I'm happy to explore.
>
> If there's no objection, let me push the change in f2fs and keep an eye on
> who more will need this in general.

I don't know why you're asking for direction. I gave my direction: use
fadvise().

Putting this directly in f2fs is a horrible idea. NAK.