Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751643AbaBLD7o (ORCPT ); Tue, 11 Feb 2014 22:59:44 -0500 Received: from mail-pb0-f43.google.com ([209.85.160.43]:36864 "EHLO mail-pb0-f43.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750807AbaBLD7m (ORCPT ); Tue, 11 Feb 2014 22:59:42 -0500 Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2014 19:59:40 -0800 (PST) From: David Rientjes X-X-Sender: rientjes@chino.kir.corp.google.com To: Luiz Capitulino cc: linux-mm@kvack.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Andrew Morton , mtosatti@redhat.com, Mel Gorman , Andrea Arcangeli , Andi Kleen , Rik van Riel Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/4] hugetlb: add hugepagesnid= command-line option In-Reply-To: <20140211103624.7edf1423@redhat.com> Message-ID: References: <1392053268-29239-1-git-send-email-lcapitulino@redhat.com> <20140211103624.7edf1423@redhat.com> User-Agent: Alpine 2.02 (DEB 1266 2009-07-14) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Tue, 11 Feb 2014, Luiz Capitulino wrote: > > > HugeTLB command-line option hugepages= allows the user to specify how many > > > huge pages should be allocated at boot. On NUMA systems, this argument > > > automatically distributes huge pages allocation among nodes, which can > > > be undesirable. > > > > > > > And when hugepages can no longer be allocated on a node because it is too > > small, the remaining hugepages are distributed over nodes with memory > > available, correct? > > No. hugepagesnid= tries to obey what was specified by the uses as much as > possible. I'm referring to what I quoted above, the hugepages= parameter. I'm saying that using existing functionality you can reserve an excess of hugepages and then free unneeded hugepages at runtime to get the desired amount allocated only on a specific node. > > Strange, it would seem better to just reserve as many hugepages as you > > want so that you get the desired number on each node and then free the > > ones you don't need at runtime. > > You mean, for example, if I have a 2 node system and want 2 1G huge pages > from node 1, then I have to allocate 4 1G huge pages and then free 2 pages > on node 0 after boot? That seems very cumbersome to me. Besides, what if > node0 needs this memory during boot? > All of this functionality, including the current hugepages= reservation at boot, needs to show that it can't be done as late as when you could run an initscript to do the reservation at runtime and fragmentation is at its lowest level when userspace first becomes available. I don't see any justification given in the patchset that suggests you can't simply do this in an initscript if it is possible to allocate 1GB pages at runtime. If it's too late because of oom, then your userspace is going to oom anyway if you reserve the hugepages at boot; if it's too late because of fragmentation, let's work on that issue (and justification why things like movablecore= don't work for you). -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/