Re: Balloon pressuring page cache

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On Wed, Feb 05, 2020 at 06:52:34AM +0000, Wang, Wei W wrote:
> On Wednesday, February 5, 2020 12:50 AM, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> > > Michael, any clue on which event we have to wait with
> > > VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_MUST_TELL_HOST? IMHO, I don't think
> > > VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_MUST_TELL_HOST applies to
> > > VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_FREE_PAGE_HINT and we'd better document that. It
> > introduces complexity with no clear benefit.
> > 
> > I meant that we must wait for host to see the hint.
> 
> Why?
> 
> Best,
> Wei

Well if we did the hint would be reliable, allowing host to immediately
drop any pages it gets in the hint. Originally I wanted to speed up
hinting by never waiting for host, but that does not seem to be what was
implemented: the only place we don't wait is the shrinker and it seems a
waste that we introduced complexity to host without getting any real
benefit out of it.

VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_MUST_TELL_HOST doesn't really apply to hinting
right now, so we could have used it to mean "hints must wait for host
to use buffers". I'm afraid it's already a wasted opportunity at
this point, reusing it isn't worth the compatibility headaches.

-- 
MST

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