Subject: + mm-vmallocc-enhance-vm_map_ram-comment.patch added to -mm tree To: gioh.kim@xxxxxxx,hannes@xxxxxxxxxxx,iamjoonsoo.kim@xxxxxxx,minchan@xxxxxxxxxx,zhangyanfei@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx From: akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 13:27:14 -0700 The patch titled Subject: mm/vmalloc.c: enhance vm_map_ram() comment has been added to the -mm tree. Its filename is mm-vmallocc-enhance-vm_map_ram-comment.patch This patch should soon appear at http://ozlabs.org/~akpm/mmots/broken-out/mm-vmallocc-enhance-vm_map_ram-comment.patch and later at http://ozlabs.org/~akpm/mmotm/broken-out/mm-vmallocc-enhance-vm_map_ram-comment.patch Before you just go and hit "reply", please: a) Consider who else should be cc'ed b) Prefer to cc a suitable mailing list as well c) Ideally: find the original patch on the mailing list and do a reply-to-all to that, adding suitable additional cc's *** Remember to use Documentation/SubmitChecklist when testing your code *** The -mm tree is included into linux-next and is updated there every 3-4 working days ------------------------------------------------------ From: "Gioh Kim" <gioh.kim@xxxxxxx> Subject: mm/vmalloc.c: enhance vm_map_ram() comment vm_map_ram() has a fragmentation problem when it cannot purge a chunk(ie, 4M address space) if there is a pinning object in that addresss space. So it could consume all VMALLOC address space easily. We can fix the fragmentation problem by using vmap instead of vm_map_ram() but vmap() is known to be slow compared to vm_map_ram(). Minchan said vm_map_ram is 5 times faster than vmap in his tests. So I thought we should fix fragment problem of vm_map_ram because our proprietary GPU driver has used it heavily. On second thought, it's not an easy because we should reuse freed space for solving the problem and it could make more IPI and bitmap operation for searching hole. It could mitigate API's goal which is very fast mapping. And even fragmentation problem wouldn't show in 64 bit machine. Another option is that the user should separate long-life and short-life object and use vmap for long-life but vm_map_ram for short-life. If we inform the user about the characteristic of vm_map_ram the user can choose one according to the page lifetime. Let's add some notice messages to user. Signed-off-by: Gioh Kim <gioh.kim@xxxxxxx> Reviewed-by: Zhang Yanfei <zhangyanfei@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Minchan Kim <minchan@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Johannes Weiner <hannes@xxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Joonsoo Kim <iamjoonsoo.kim@xxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- mm/vmalloc.c | 6 ++++++ 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+) diff -puN mm/vmalloc.c~mm-vmallocc-enhance-vm_map_ram-comment mm/vmalloc.c --- a/mm/vmalloc.c~mm-vmallocc-enhance-vm_map_ram-comment +++ a/mm/vmalloc.c @@ -1085,6 +1085,12 @@ EXPORT_SYMBOL(vm_unmap_ram); * @node: prefer to allocate data structures on this node * @prot: memory protection to use. PAGE_KERNEL for regular RAM * + * If you use this function for below VMAP_MAX_ALLOC pages, it could be faster + * than vmap so it's good. But if you mix long-life and short-life object + * with vm_map_ram, it could consume lots of address space by fragmentation + * (expecially, 32bit machine). You could see failure in the end. + * Please use this function for short-life object. + * * Returns: a pointer to the address that has been mapped, or %NULL on failure */ void *vm_map_ram(struct page **pages, unsigned int count, int node, pgprot_t prot) _ Patches currently in -mm which might be from gioh.kim@xxxxxxx are mm-vmallocc-enhance-vm_map_ram-comment.patch -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe mm-commits" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html