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Date:   Wed, 29 Apr 2020 14:22:11 +0200
From:   Michal Hocko <mhocko@kernel.org>
To:     Srikar Dronamraju <srikar@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Cc:     Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
        linuxppc-dev@lists.ozlabs.org, linux-mm@kvack.org,
        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Mel Gorman <mgorman@suse.de>,
        Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz>,
        "Kirill A. Shutemov" <kirill@shutemov.name>,
        Christopher Lameter <cl@linux.com>,
        Michael Ellerman <mpe@ellerman.id.au>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 3/3] mm/page_alloc: Keep memoryless cpuless node 0
 offline
Message-ID: <20200429122211.GD28637@dhcp22.suse.cz>
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 <20200428093836.27190-4-srikar@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
 <20200428165912.ca1eadefbac56d740e6e8fd1@linux-foundation.org>
 <20200429014145.GD19958@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
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On Wed 29-04-20 07:11:45, Srikar Dronamraju wrote:
> > > 
> > > By marking, N_ONLINE as NODE_MASK_NONE, lets stop assuming that Node 0 is
> > > always online.
> > > 
> > > ...
> > >
> > > --- a/mm/page_alloc.c
> > > +++ b/mm/page_alloc.c
> > > @@ -116,8 +116,10 @@ EXPORT_SYMBOL(latent_entropy);
> > >   */
> > >  nodemask_t node_states[NR_NODE_STATES] __read_mostly = {
> > >  	[N_POSSIBLE] = NODE_MASK_ALL,
> > > +#ifdef CONFIG_NUMA
> > > +	[N_ONLINE] = NODE_MASK_NONE,
> > > +#else
> > >  	[N_ONLINE] = { { [0] = 1UL } },
> > > -#ifndef CONFIG_NUMA
> > >  	[N_NORMAL_MEMORY] = { { [0] = 1UL } },
> > >  #ifdef CONFIG_HIGHMEM
> > >  	[N_HIGH_MEMORY] = { { [0] = 1UL } },
> > 
> > So on all other NUMA machines, when does node 0 get marked online?
> > 
> > This change means that for some time during boot, such machines will
> > now be running with node 0 marked as offline.  What are the
> > implications of this?  Will something break?
> 
> Till the nodes are detected, marking Node 0 as online tends to be redundant.
> Because the system doesn't know if its a NUMA or a non-NUMA system.
> Once we detect the nodes, we online them immediately. Hence I don't see any
> side-effects or negative implications of this change.
> 
> However if I am missing anything, please do let me know.
> 
> >From my part, I have tested this on
> 1. Non-NUMA Single node but CPUs and memory coming from zero node.
> 2. Non-NUMA Single node but CPUs and memory coming from non-zero node.
> 3. NUMA Multi node but with CPUs and memory from node 0.
> 4. NUMA Multi node but with no CPUs and memory from node 0.

Have you tested on something else than ppc? Each arch does the NUMA
setup separately and this is a big mess. E.g. x86 marks even memory less
nodes (see init_memory_less_node) as online.

Honestly I have hard time to evaluate the effect of this patch. It makes
some sense to assume all nodes offline before they get online but this
is a land mine territory.

I am also not sure what kind of problem this is going to address. You
have mentioned numa balancing without many details.
-- 
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs