On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 11:49 PM, Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Sun, 29 Jan 2012 14:18:32 +0200 > Gilad Ben-Yossef <gilad@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > >> On Sat, Jan 28, 2012 at 2:12 AM, Andrew Morton >> <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> > On Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:02:00 +0200 >> > Gilad Ben-Yossef <gilad@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> > >> >> Calculate a cpumask of CPUs with per-cpu pages in any zone >> >> and only send an IPI requesting CPUs to drain these pages >> >> to the buddy allocator if they actually have pages when >> >> asked to flush. >> >> >> >> ... >> >> > Can we end up sending an IPI to a now-unplugged CPU? __That won't work >> > very well if that CPU is now sitting on its sysadmin's desk. >> >> Nope. on_each_cpu_mask() disables preemption and calls smp_call_function_many() >> which then checks the mask against the cpu_online_mask > > OK. > > General rule of thumb: if a reviewer asked something then it is likely > that others will wonder the same thing when reading the code later on. > So consider reviewer questions as a sign that the code needs additional > comments! Right, point taken. > >> > There's also the case of CPU online. __We could end up failing to IPI a >> > CPU which now has some percpu pages. __That's not at all serious - 90% >> > is good enough in page reclaim. __But this thinking merits a mention in >> > the comment. __Or we simply make this code hotplug-safe. >> >> hmm.. I'm probably daft but I don't see how to make the code hotplug safe for >> CPU online case. I mean, let's say we disable preemption throughout the >> entire ordeal and then the CPU goes online and gets itself some percpu pages >> *after* we've calculated the masks, sent the IPIs and waiting for the >> whole thing >> to finish but before we've returned... > > This is inherent to the whole drain-pages design - it's only a > best-effort thing and there's nothing to prevent other CPUs from > undoing your work 2 nanoseconds later. > > The exception to this is the case of suspend, which drains the queues > when all tasks (and, hopefully, IRQs) have been frozen. This is the > only way to make draining 100% "reliable". > >> I might be missing something here, but I think that unless you have some other >> means to stop newly hotplugged CPUs to grab per cpus pages there is nothing >> you can do in this code to stop it. Maybe make the race window >> shorter, that's all. >> >> Would adding a comment such as the following OK? >> >> "This code is protected against sending an IPI to an offline CPU but does not >> guarantee sending an IPI to newly hotplugged CPUs" > > Looks OK. I'd mention *how* this protection comes about: > on_each_cpu_mask() blocks hotplug and won't talk to offlined CPUs. Good. I'll send an updated patch set. Thanks :-) Gilad -- Gilad Ben-Yossef Chief Coffee Drinker gilad@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Israel Cell: +972-52-8260388 US Cell: +1-973-8260388 http://benyossef.com "Unfortunately, cache misses are an equal opportunity pain provider." -- Mike Galbraith, LKML -- To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to majordomo@xxxxxxxxx. For more info on Linux MM, see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ . Fight unfair telecom internet charges in Canada: sign http://stopthemeter.ca/ Don't email: <a href