The patch titled Subject: mm: allow deferred page init for vmemmap only has been removed from the -mm tree. Its filename was mm-allow-deferred-page-init-for-vmemmap-only.patch This patch was dropped because an alternative patch was merged ------------------------------------------------------ From: Pavel Tatashin <pasha.tatashin@xxxxxxxxxx> Subject: mm: allow deferred page init for vmemmap only It is unsafe to do virtual to physical translations before mm_init() is called if struct page is needed in order to determine the memory section number (see SECTION_IN_PAGE_FLAGS). This is because only in mm_init() we initialize struct pages for all the allocated memory when deferred struct pages are used. My recent fix exposed this problem, because it greatly reduced number of pages that are initialized before mm_init(), but the problem existed even before my fix, as Fengguang Wu found. Below is a more detailed explanation of the problem. We initialize struct pages in four places: 1. Early in boot a small set of struct pages is initialized to fill the first section, and lower zones. 2. During mm_init() we initialize "struct pages" for all the memory that is allocated, i.e reserved in memblock. 3. Using on-demand logic when pages are allocated after mm_init call (when memblock is finished) 4. After smp_init() when the rest free deferred pages are initialized. The problem occurs if we try to do va to phys translation of a memory between steps 1 and 2. Because we have not yet initialized struct pages for all the reserved pages, it is inherently unsafe to do va to phys if the translation itself requires access of "struct page" as in case of this combination: CONFIG_SPARSE && !CONFIG_SPARSE_VMEMMAP Here is a sample path, where translation is required, that occurs before mm_init(): start_kernel() trap_init() setup_cpu_entry_areas() setup_cpu_entry_area(cpu) get_cpu_gdt_paddr(cpu) per_cpu_ptr_to_phys(addr) pcpu_addr_to_page(addr) virt_to_page(addr) pfn_to_page(__pa(addr) >> PAGE_SHIFT) The problems are discussed in these threads: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20180418135300.inazvpxjxowogyge@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20180419013128.iurzouiqxvcnpbvz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20180426202619.2768-1-pasha.tatashin@xxxxxxxxxx My worry is that trap_init() is arch specific and we cannot guarantee that arches won't do virt to phys in trap_init() in other places. Therefore, I think a proper fix is simply allow DEFERRED_STRUCT_PAGE_INIT when it is safe to do virt to phys without accessing struct pages, which is with SPARSEMEM_VMEMMAP. Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20180509191713.23794-1-pasha.tatashin@xxxxxxxxxx Fixes: 3a80a7fa7989 ("mm: meminit: initialise a subset of struct pages if CONFIG_DEFERRED_STRUCT_PAGE_INIT is set") Signed-off-by: Pavel Tatashin <pasha.tatashin@xxxxxxxxxx> Reviewed-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: <steven.sistare@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Daniel Jordan <daniel.m.jordan@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxxx> Cc: Mel Gorman <mgorman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Dennis Zhou <dennisszhou@xxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- mm/Kconfig | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff -puN mm/Kconfig~mm-allow-deferred-page-init-for-vmemmap-only mm/Kconfig --- a/mm/Kconfig~mm-allow-deferred-page-init-for-vmemmap-only +++ a/mm/Kconfig @@ -635,7 +635,7 @@ config DEFERRED_STRUCT_PAGE_INIT bool "Defer initialisation of struct pages to kthreads" default n depends on NO_BOOTMEM - depends on !FLATMEM + depends on SPARSEMEM_VMEMMAP help Ordinarily all struct pages are initialised during early boot in a single thread. On very large machines this can take a considerable _ Patches currently in -mm which might be from pasha.tatashin@xxxxxxxxxx are mm-dont-allow-deferred-pages-with-need_per_cpu_km.patch sparc64-ng4-memset-32-bits-overflow.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