From: Joonsoo Kim <iamjoonsoo.kim@xxxxxxx> PageHighMem() is used for two different cases. One is to check if there is a direct mapping for this page or not. The other is to check the zone of this page, that is, weather it is the highmem type zone or not. Until now, both the cases are the perfectly same thing. So, implementation of the PageHighMem() uses the one case that checks if the zone of the page is the highmem type zone or not. "#define PageHighMem(__p) is_highmem_idx(page_zonenum(__p))" ZONE_MOVABLE is special. It is considered as normal type zone on !CONFIG_HIGHMEM, but, it is considered as highmem type zone on CONFIG_HIGHMEM. Let's focus on later case. In later case, all pages on the ZONE_MOVABLE has no direct mapping until now. However, following patchset "mm/cma: manage the memory of the CMA area by using the ZONE_MOVABLE" , which is once merged and reverted, will be tried again and will break this assumption that all pages on the ZONE_MOVABLE has no direct mapping. Hence, the ZONE_MOVABLE which is considered as highmem type zone could have the both types of pages, direct mapped and not. Since the ZONE_MOVABLE could have both type of pages, __GFP_HIGHMEM is still required to allocate the memory from it. And, we conservatively need to consider the ZONE_MOVABLE as highmem type zone. Even in this situation, PageHighMem() for the pages on the ZONE_MOVABLE when it is called for checking the direct mapping should return correct result. Current implementation of PageHighMem() just returns TRUE if the zone of the page is on a highmem type zone. So, it could be wrong if the page on the MOVABLE_ZONE is actually direct mapped. To solve this potential problem, this patch introduces a new PageHighMemZone() macro. In following patches, two use cases of PageHighMem() are separated by calling proper macro, PageHighMem() and PageHighMemZone(). Then, implementation of PageHighMem() will be changed as just checking if the direct mapping exists or not, regardless of the zone of the page. Note that there are some rules to determine the proper macro. 1. If PageHighMem() is called for checking if the direct mapping exists or not, use PageHighMem(). 2. If PageHighMem() is used to predict the previous gfp_flags for this page, use PageHighMemZone(). The zone of the page is related to the gfp_flags. 3. If purpose of calling PageHighMem() is to count highmem page and to interact with the system by using this count, use PageHighMemZone(). This counter is usually used to calculate the available memory for an kernel allocation and pages on the highmem zone cannot be available for an kernel allocation. 4. Otherwise, use PageHighMemZone(). It's safe since it's implementation is just copy of the previous PageHighMem() implementation and won't be changed. My final plan is to change the name, PageHighMem() to PageNoDirectMapped() or something else in order to represent proper meaning. Signed-off-by: Joonsoo Kim <iamjoonsoo.kim@xxxxxxx> --- include/linux/page-flags.h | 6 ++++++ 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+) diff --git a/include/linux/page-flags.h b/include/linux/page-flags.h index 222f6f7..fca0cce 100644 --- a/include/linux/page-flags.h +++ b/include/linux/page-flags.h @@ -378,10 +378,16 @@ PAGEFLAG(Readahead, reclaim, PF_NO_COMPOUND) /* * Must use a macro here due to header dependency issues. page_zone() is not * available at this point. + * PageHighMem() is for checking if the direct mapping exists or not. + * PageHighMemZone() is for checking the zone, where the page is belong to, + * in order to predict previous gfp_flags or to count something for system + * memory management. */ #define PageHighMem(__p) is_highmem_idx(page_zonenum(__p)) +#define PageHighMemZone(__p) is_highmem_idx(page_zonenum(__p)) #else PAGEFLAG_FALSE(HighMem) +PAGEFLAG_FALSE(HighMemZone) #endif #ifdef CONFIG_SWAP -- 2.7.4