On Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 01:13:56PM -0800, John Hubbard wrote:
> On 2/11/19 12:39 PM, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
> > On Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 12:16:42PM -0800, ira.weiny@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> >> From: Ira Weiny <ira.weiny@xxxxxxxxx>
> [...]
> >> +static inline int get_user_pages_fast_longterm(unsigned long start, int nr_pages,
> >> + bool write, struct page **pages)
> >> +{
> >> + return get_user_pages_fast(start, nr_pages, write, pages);
> >> +}
> >> #endif /* CONFIG_FS_DAX */
> >>
> >> int get_user_pages_fast(unsigned long start, int nr_pages, int write,
> >> @@ -2615,6 +2622,7 @@ struct page *follow_page(struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long address,
> >> #define FOLL_REMOTE 0x2000 /* we are working on non-current tsk/mm */
> >> #define FOLL_COW 0x4000 /* internal GUP flag */
> >> #define FOLL_ANON 0x8000 /* don't do file mappings */
> >> +#define FOLL_LONGTERM 0x10000 /* mapping is intended for a long term pin */
> >
> > If we are adding a new flag, maybe we should get rid of the 'longterm'
> > entry points and just rely on the callers to pass the flag?
> >
> > Jason
> >
>
> +1, I agree that the overall get_user_pages*() API family will be cleaner
> *without* get_user_pages_longterm*() calls. And this new flag makes that possible.
> So I'd like to see the "longerm" call replaced with just passing this flag. Maybe
> even as part of this patchset, but either way.
Yes I've thought about this as well. I have a couple of different versions of
this series which I've been mulling over and this was one of the other
variations. But see below...
>
> Taking a moment to reflect on where I think this might go eventually (the notes
> below do not need to affect your patchset here, but this seems like a good place
> to mention this):
>
> It seems to me that the longterm vs. short-term is of questionable value.
This is exactly why I did not post this before. I've been waiting our other
discussions on how GUP pins are going to be handled to play out. But with the
netdev thread today[1] it seems like we need to make sure we have a "safe" fast
variant for a while. Introducing FOLL_LONGTERM seemed like the cleanest way to
do that even if we will not need the distinction in the future... :-(
> It's actually better to just call get_user_pages(), and then if it really is
> long-term enough to matter internally, we'll see the pages marked as gup-pinned.
> If the gup pages are released before anyone (filesystem, that is) notices, then
> it must have been short term.
>
> Doing it that way is self-maintaining. Of course, this assumes that we end up with
> a design that doesn't require being told, by the call sites, that a given gup
> call is intended for "long term" use. So I could be wrong about this direction, but
> let's please consider the possibility.
This is why I've been holding these patches. I'm also not 100% sure if we will
need the longterm flag in the future.
This is also why I did not change the get_user_pages_longterm because we could
be ripping this all out by the end of the year... (I hope. :-)
So while this does "pollute" the GUP family of calls I'm hoping it is not
forever.
Ira
[1] https://lkml.org/lkml/2019/2/11/1789
>
> thanks,
> --
> John Hubbard
> NVIDIA
