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Date:   Fri, 9 Apr 2021 08:39:45 +0200
From:   Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
To:     Mel Gorman <mgorman@techsingularity.net>
Cc:     Linux-MM <linux-mm@kvack.org>,
        Linux-RT-Users <linux-rt-users@vger.kernel.org>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
        Chuck Lever <chuck.lever@oracle.com>,
        Jesper Dangaard Brouer <brouer@redhat.com>,
        Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>,
        Michal Hocko <mhocko@kernel.org>,
        Oscar Salvador <osalvador@suse.de>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 02/11] mm/page_alloc: Convert per-cpu list protection to
 local_lock
Message-ID: <YG/2scd9ADdrIyCM@hirez.programming.kicks-ass.net>
References: <20210407202423.16022-1-mgorman@techsingularity.net>
 <20210407202423.16022-3-mgorman@techsingularity.net>
 <YG7gV7yAEEjOcQZY@hirez.programming.kicks-ass.net>
 <20210408174244.GG3697@techsingularity.net>
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On Thu, Apr 08, 2021 at 06:42:44PM +0100, Mel Gorman wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 08, 2021 at 12:52:07PM +0200, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> > > diff --git a/mm/page_alloc.c b/mm/page_alloc.c
> > > index a68bacddcae0..e9e60d1a85d4 100644
> > > --- a/mm/page_alloc.c
> > > +++ b/mm/page_alloc.c
> > > @@ -112,6 +112,13 @@ typedef int __bitwise fpi_t;
> > >  static DEFINE_MUTEX(pcp_batch_high_lock);
> > >  #define MIN_PERCPU_PAGELIST_FRACTION	(8)
> > >  
> > > +struct pagesets {
> > > +	local_lock_t lock;
> > > +};
> > > +static DEFINE_PER_CPU(struct pagesets, pagesets) = {
> > > +	.lock = INIT_LOCAL_LOCK(lock),
> > > +};
> > 
> > So why isn't the local_lock_t in struct per_cpu_pages ? That seems to be
> > the actual object that is protected by it and is already per-cpu.
> > 
> > Is that because you want to avoid the duplication across zones? Is that
> > worth the effort?
> 
> When I wrote the patch, the problem was that zone_pcp_reset freed the
> per_cpu_pages structure and it was "protected" by local_irq_save(). If
> that was converted to local_lock_irq then the structure containing the
> lock is freed before it is released which is obviously bad.
> 
> Much later when trying to make the allocator RT-safe in general, I realised
> that locking was broken and fixed it in patch 3 of this series. With that,
> the local_lock could potentially be embedded within per_cpu_pages safely
> at the end of this series.

Fair enough; I was just wondering why the obvious solution wasn't chosen
and neither changelog nor comment explain, so I had to ask :-)