On Tue, Apr 09, 2013 at 04:28:09PM +0800, Simon Jeons wrote: > Hi Jerome, > On 02/10/2013 12:29 AM, Jerome Glisse wrote: > >On Sat, Feb 9, 2013 at 1:05 AM, Michel Lespinasse <walken@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > >>On Fri, Feb 8, 2013 at 3:18 AM, Shachar Raindel <raindel@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > >>>Hi, > >>> > >>>We would like to present a reference implementation for safely sharing > >>>memory pages from user space with the hardware, without pinning. > >>> > >>>We will be happy to hear the community feedback on our prototype > >>>implementation, and suggestions for future improvements. > >>> > >>>We would also like to discuss adding features to the core MM subsystem to > >>>assist hardware access to user memory without pinning. > >>This sounds kinda scary TBH; however I do understand the need for such > >>technology. > >> > >>I think one issue is that many MM developers are insufficiently aware > >>of such developments; having a technology presentation would probably > >>help there; but traditionally LSF/MM sessions are more interactive > >>between developers who are already quite familiar with the technology. > >>I think it would help if you could send in advance a detailed > >>presentation of the problem and the proposed solutions (and then what > >>they require of the MM layer) so people can be better prepared. > >> > >>And first I'd like to ask, aren't IOMMUs supposed to already largely > >>solve this problem ? (probably a dumb question, but that just tells > >>you how much you need to explain :) > >For GPU the motivation is three fold. With the advance of GPU compute > >and also with newer graphic program we see a massive increase in GPU > >memory consumption. We easily can reach buffer that are bigger than > >1gbytes. So the first motivation is to directly use the memory the > >user allocated through malloc in the GPU this avoid copying 1gbytes of > >data with the cpu to the gpu buffer. The second and mostly important > >to GPU compute is the use of GPU seamlessly with the CPU, in order to > >achieve this you want the programmer to have a single address space on > >the CPU and GPU. So that the same address point to the same object on > >GPU as on the CPU. This would also be a tremendous cleaner design from > >driver point of view toward memory management. > > > >And last, the most important, with such big buffer (>1gbytes) the > >memory pinning is becoming way to expensive and also drastically > >reduce the freedom of the mm to free page for other process. Most of > >the time a small window (every thing is relative the window can be > > >100mbytes not so small :)) of the object will be in use by the > >hardware. The hardware pagefault support would avoid the necessity to > > What's the meaning of hardware pagefault? It's a PCIE extension (well it's a combination of extension that allow that see http://www.pcisig.com/specifications/iov/ats/). Idea is that the iommu can trigger a regular pagefault inside a process address space on behalf of the hardware. The only iommu supporting that right now is the AMD iommu v2 that you find on recent AMD platform. > > >pin memory and thus offer greater flexibility. At the same time the > >driver wants to avoid page fault as much as possible this is why i > >would like to be able to give hint to the mm about range of address it > >should avoid freeing page (swapping them out). > > > >The iommu was designed with other goals, which were first isolate > >device from one another and restrict device access to allowed memory. > >Second allow to remap address that are above device address space > > When need remap address? Some hardware have 24bits or 32bits address limitation, iommu allow to remap memory that are above this range into the working range of the device. Just as i said below. Or are your question different ? Cheers, Jerome > >limit. Lot of device can only address 24bit or 32bit of memory and > >with computer with several gbytes of memory suddenly lot of the page > >become unreachable to the hardware. The iommu allow to work around > >this by remapping those high page into address that the hardware can > >reach. > > > >The hardware page fault support is a new feature of iommu designed to > >help the os and driver to reduce memory pinning and also share address > >space. Thought i am sure there are other motivations that i am not > >even aware off or would think off. > > > >Btw i won't be at LSF/MM so a free good beer (or other beverage) on me > >to whoever takes note on this subject in next conf we run into each > >others. > > -- 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/ . Don't email: <a href=mailto:"dont@xxxxxxxxx";> email@xxxxxxxxx </a>