Hello Vlastimil, On 4 February 2015 at 14:46, Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@xxxxxxx> wrote: > On 02/03/2015 05:20 PM, Michael Kerrisk (man-pages) wrote: >> >> On 02/03/2015 12:42 PM, Vlastimil Babka wrote: >>> >>> On 02/03/2015 11:53 AM, Kirill A. Shutemov wrote: >>>> >>>> On Tue, Feb 03, 2015 at 09:19:15AM +0100, Vlastimil Babka wrote: >>>> >>>> It doesn't skip. It fails with -EINVAL. Or I miss something. >>> >>> >>> No, I missed that. Thanks for pointing out. The manpage also explains >>> EINVAL in >>> this case: >>> >>> * The application is attempting to release locked or shared pages (with >>> MADV_DONTNEED). >> >> Yes, there is that. But the page could be more explicit when discussing >> MADV_DONTNEED in the main text. I've done that. >> >>> - that covers mlocking ok, not sure if the rest fits the "shared pages" >>> case >>> though. I dont see any check for other kinds of shared pages in the code. >> >> Agreed. "shared" here seems confused. I've removed it. And I've >> added mention of "Huge TLB pages" for this error. > > Thanks. I also added those cases for MADV_REMOVE, BTW. >>>>> - The word "will result" did sound as a guarantee at least to me. So >>>>> here it >>>>> could be changed to "may result (unless the advice is ignored)"? >>>> >>>> It's too late to fix documentation. Applications already depends on the >>>> beheviour. >>> >>> Right, so as long as they check for EINVAL, it should be safe. It appears >>> that >>> jemalloc does. >> >> >> So, first a brief question: in the cases where the call does not error >> out, >> are we agreed that in the current implementation, MADV_DONTNEED will >> always result in zero-filled pages when the region is faulted back in >> (when we consider pages that are not backed by a file)? > > > I'd agree at this point. Thanks for the confirmation. > Also we should probably mention anonymously shared pages (shmem). I think > they behave the same as file here. You mean tmpfs here, right? (I don't keep all of the synonyms straight.) >>> I still wouldnt be sure just by reading the man page that the clearing is >>> guaranteed whenever I dont get an error return value, though, >> >> I'm not quite sure what you want here. I mean: if there's an error, > > I was just reiterating that the guarantee is not clear from if you consider > all the statements in the man page. > >> then the DONTNEED action didn't occur, right? Therefore, there won't >> be zero-filled pages. But, for what it's worth, I added "If the >> operation succeeds" at the start of that sentence beginning "Subsequent >> accesses...". > > Yes, that should clarify it. Thanks! Okay. >> Now, some history, explaining why the page is a bit of a mess, >> and for that matter why I could really use more help on it from MM >> folk (especially in the form of actual patches [1], rather than notes >> about deficiencies in the documentation), because: >> >> ***I simply cannot keep up with all of the details***. > > I see, and expected it would be like this. I would just send patch if the > situation was clear, but here we should agree first, and I thought you > should be involved from the beginning. Sorry -- I should have made it clearer, this statement was not targeted at you personally, or even necessarily at this particular thread. It was a general comment, that came up sharply to me as I looked at how much cruft there is in the madvise() page. >> Once upon a time (Linux 2.4), there was madvise() with just 5 flags: >> >> MADV_NORMAL >> MADV_RANDOM >> MADV_SEQUENTIAL >> MADV_WILLNEED >> MADV_DONTNEED >> >> And already a dozen years ago, *I* added the text about MADV_DONTNEED. >> Back then, I believe it was true. I'm not sure if it's still true now, >> but I assume for the moment that it is, and await feedback. And the >> text saying that the call does not affect the semantics of memory >> access dates back even further (and was then true, MADV_DONTNEED aside). >> >> Those 5 flags have analogs in POSIX's posix_madvise() (albeit, there >> is a semantic mismatch between the destructive MADV_DONTNEED and >> POSIX's nondestructive POSIX_MADV_DONTNEED). They also appear >> on most other implementations. >> >> Since the original implementation, numerous pieces of cruft^W^W^W >> excellent new flags have been overloaded into this one system call. >> Some of those certainly violated the "does not change the semantics >> of the application" statement, but, sadly, the kernel developers who >> implemented MADV_REMOVE or MADV_DONTFORK did not think to send a >> patch to the man page for those new flags, one that might have noted >> that the semantics of the application are changed by such flags. Equally >> sadly, I did overlook to scan the bigger page when *I* added >> documentation of these flags to those pages, otherwise I might have >> caught that detail. >> >> So, just to repeat, I could really use more help on it from MM >> folk in the form of actual patches to the man page. > > Thanks for the background. I'll try to remember to check for man-pages part > when I review some api changing patch. That would be great. Thanks, Michael -- Michael Kerrisk Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/ Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/ -- 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>