Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org designates 23.128.96.18 as permitted sender) client-ip=23.128.96.18;
Date:   Mon, 22 Feb 2021 13:46:35 +0100
From:   Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com>
To:     David Hildenbrand <david@redhat.com>
Cc:     Peter Xu <peterx@redhat.com>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
        linux-mm@kvack.org, Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
        Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>,
        Oscar Salvador <osalvador@suse.de>,
        Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org>,
        Andrea Arcangeli <aarcange@redhat.com>,
        Minchan Kim <minchan@kernel.org>, Jann Horn <jannh@google.com>,
        Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@ziepe.ca>,
        Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@intel.com>,
        Hugh Dickins <hughd@google.com>,
        Rik van Riel <riel@surriel.com>,
        "Michael S . Tsirkin" <mst@redhat.com>,
        "Kirill A . Shutemov" <kirill.shutemov@linux.intel.com>,
        Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz>,
        Richard Henderson <rth@twiddle.net>,
        Ivan Kokshaysky <ink@jurassic.park.msu.ru>,
        Matt Turner <mattst88@gmail.com>,
        Thomas Bogendoerfer <tsbogend@alpha.franken.de>,
        "James E.J. Bottomley" <James.Bottomley@hansenpartnership.com>,
        Helge Deller <deller@gmx.de>, Chris Zankel <chris@zankel.net>,
        Max Filippov <jcmvbkbc@gmail.com>, linux-alpha@vger.kernel.org,
        linux-mips@vger.kernel.org, linux-parisc@vger.kernel.org,
        linux-xtensa@linux-xtensa.org, linux-arch@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH RFC] mm/madvise: introduce MADV_POPULATE to
 prefault/prealloc memory
Message-ID: <YDOnq9Nliopj9kQL@dhcp22.suse.cz>
References: <20210217154844.12392-1-david@redhat.com>
 <20210218225904.GB6669@xz-x1>
 <b24996a6-7652-f88c-301e-28417637fd02@redhat.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
In-Reply-To: <b24996a6-7652-f88c-301e-28417637fd02@redhat.com>
Precedence: bulk

I am slowly catching up with this thread.

On Fri 19-02-21 09:20:16, David Hildenbrand wrote:
[...]
> So if we have zero, we write zero. We'll COW pages, triggering a write fault
> - and that's the only good thing about it. For example, similar to
> MADV_POPULATE, nothing stops KSM from merging anonymous pages again. So for
> anonymous memory the actual write is not helpful at all. Similarly for
> hugetlbfs, the actual write is not necessary - but there is no other way to
> really achieve the goal.

I really do not see why you care about KSM so much. Isn't KSM an
explicit opt-in with a fine grained interface to control which memory to
KSM or not?
-- 
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs