Re: [PATCH v2 4/9] mm: vmalloc: Remove global vmap_area_root rb-tree

Baoquan He
2023-09-07T02:18:39Z

Add Kazu and Lianbo to CC, and kexec mailing list

On 08/29/23 at 10:11am, Uladzislau Rezki (Sony) wrote:
> Store allocated objects in a separate nodes. A va->va_start
> address is converted into a correct node where it should
> be placed and resided. An addr_to_node() function is used
> to do a proper address conversion to determine a node that
> contains a VA.
>
> Such approach balances VAs across nodes as a result an access
> becomes scalable. Number of nodes in a system depends on number
> of CPUs divided by two. The density factor in this case is 1/2.
>
> Please note:
>
> 1. As of now allocated VAs are bound to a node-0. It means the
> patch does not give any difference comparing with a current
> behavior;
>
> 2. The global vmap_area_lock, vmap_area_root are removed as there
> is no need in it anymore. The vmap_area_list is still kept and
> is _empty_. It is exported for a kexec only;

I haven't taken a test, while accessing all nodes' busy tree to get
va of the lowest address could severely impact kcore reading efficiency
on system with many vmap nodes. People doing live debugging via
/proc/kcore will get a little surprise.

Empty vmap_area_list will break makedumpfile utility, Crash utility
could be impactd too. I checked makedumpfile code, it relys on
vmap_area_list to deduce the vmalloc_start value.

>
> 3. The vmallocinfo and vread() have to be reworked to be able to
> handle multiple nodes.