Hello, On Thu, Aug 15, 2013 at 11:46:07AM +0800, Xishi Qiu wrote: > On 2013/8/15 10:44, Minchan Kim wrote: > > > Hi Xishi, > > > > On Thu, Aug 15, 2013 at 10:32:50AM +0800, Xishi Qiu wrote: > >> On 2013/8/15 2:00, Mel Gorman wrote: > >> > >>>>> Even if the page is still page buddy, there is no guarantee that it's > >>>>> the same page order as the first read. It could have be currently > >>>>> merging with adjacent buddies for example. There is also a really > >>>>> small race that a page was freed, allocated with some number stuffed > >>>>> into page->private and freed again before the second PageBuddy check. > >>>>> It's a bit of a hand grenade. How much of a performance benefit is there > >>>> > >>>> 1. Just worst case is skipping pageblock_nr_pages > >>> > >>> No, the worst case is that page_order returns a number that is > >>> completely garbage and low_pfn goes off the end of the zone > >>> > >>>> 2. Race is really small > >>>> 3. Higher order page allocation customer always have graceful fallback. > >>>> > >> > >> Hi Minchan, > >> I think in this case, we may get the wrong value from page_order(page). > >> > >> 1. page is in page buddy > >> > >>> if (PageBuddy(page)) { > >> > >> 2. someone allocated the page, and set page->private to another value > >> > >>> int nr_pages = (1 << page_order(page)) - 1; > >> > >> 3. someone freed the page > >> > >>> if (PageBuddy(page)) { > >> > >> 4. we will skip wrong pages > > > > So, what's the result by that? > > As I said, it's just skipping (pageblock_nr_pages -1) at worst case > > Hi Minchan, > I mean if the private is set to a large number, it will skip 2^private > pages, not (pageblock_nr_pages -1). I find somewhere will use page->private, > such as fs. Here is the comment about parivate. > /* Mapping-private opaque data: > * usually used for buffer_heads > * if PagePrivate set; used for > * swp_entry_t if PageSwapCache; > * indicates order in the buddy > * system if PG_buddy is set. > */ Please read full thread in detail. Mel suggested following as if (PageBuddy(page)) { int nr_pages = (1 << page_order(page)) - 1; if (PageBuddy(page)) { nr_pages = min(nr_pages, MAX_ORDER_NR_PAGES - 1); low_pfn += nr_pages; continue; } } min(nr_pages, xxx) removes your concern but I think Mel's version isn't right. It should be aligned with pageblock boundary so I suggested following. if (PageBuddy(page)) { #ifdef CONFIG_MEMORY_ISOLATION unsigned long order = page_order(page); if (PageBuddy(page)) { low_pfn += (1 << order) - 1; low_pfn = min(low_pfn, end_pfn); } #endif continue; } so worst case is (pageblock_nr_pages - 1). but we don't need to add CONFIG_MEMORY_ISOLATION so my suggestion is following as. if (PageBuddy(page)) { unsigned long order = page_order(page); if (PageBuddy(page)) { low_pfn += (1 << order) - 1; low_pfn = min(low_pfn, end_pfn); } continue; } > Thanks, > Xishi Qiu > > > and the case you mentioned is right academically and I and Mel > > already pointed out that. But how often could that happen in real > > practice? I believe such is REALLY REALLY rare. > > So, as Mel said, if you have some workloads to see the benefit > > from this patch, I think we could accept the patch. > > Could you try and respin with the number? > > I guess big contigous memory range or memory-hotplug which are > > full of free pages in embedded CPU which is rather slower than server > > or desktop side could have benefit. > > > > Thanks. > > > >> > >>> nr_pages = min(nr_pages, MAX_ORDER_NR_PAGES - 1); > >>> low_pfn += nr_pages; > >>> continue; > >>> } > >>> } > >>> > >>> It's still race-prone meaning that it really should be backed by some > >>> performance data justifying it. > >>> > >> > >> > >> > > > > > -- Kind regards, Minchan Kim -- 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>