Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753304AbZGLTej (ORCPT ); Sun, 12 Jul 2009 15:34:39 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751071AbZGLTe3 (ORCPT ); Sun, 12 Jul 2009 15:34:29 -0400 Received: from mail-yx0-f184.google.com ([209.85.210.184]:55743 "EHLO mail-yx0-f184.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751042AbZGLTe3 (ORCPT ); Sun, 12 Jul 2009 15:34:29 -0400 Message-ID: <4A5A3AC1.5080800@codemonkey.ws> Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 14:34:25 -0500 From: Anthony Liguori User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.21 (X11/20090320) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Avi Kivity CC: Dan Magenheimer , Rik van Riel , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, npiggin@suse.de, akpm@osdl.org, jeremy@goop.org, xen-devel@lists.xensource.com, tmem-devel@oss.oracle.com, alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk, linux-mm@kvack.org, kurt.hackel@oracle.com, Rusty Russell , dave.mccracken@oracle.com, Marcelo Tosatti , sunil.mushran@oracle.com, Schwidefsky , chris.mason@oracle.com, Balbir Singh Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH 0/4] (Take 2): transcendent memory ("tmem") for Linux References: <4A5A1A51.2080301@redhat.com> In-Reply-To: <4A5A1A51.2080301@redhat.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1433 Lines: 31 Avi Kivity wrote: > > In fact CMM2 is much more intrusive (but on the other hand provides > much more information). I don't think this will remain true long term. CMM2 touches a lot of core mm code and certainly qualifies as intrusive. However the result is that the VMM has a tremendous amount of insight into how the guest is using it's memory and can implement all sorts of fancy policy for reclaim. Since the reclaim policy can evolve without any additional assistance from the guest, the guest doesn't have to change as policy evolves. Since tmem requires that reclaim policy is implemented within the guest, I think in the long term, tmem will have to touch a broad number of places within Linux. Beside the core mm, the first round of patches already touch filesystems (just ext3 to start out with). To truly be effective, tmem would have to be a first class kernel citizen and I suspect a lot of code would have to be aware of it. So while CMM2 does a lot of code no one wants to touch, I think in the long term it would remain relatively well contained compared to tmem which will steadily increase in complexity within the guest. Regards, Anthony Liguori -- 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/