Re: [PATCH HOTFIX 6.17] mm/mremap: avoid expensive folio lookup on mremap folio pte batch

[Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz>]

On 8/7/25 20:58, Lorenzo Stoakes wrote:
> It was discovered in the attached report that commit f822a9a81a31 ("mm:
> optimize mremap() by PTE batching") introduced a significant performance
> regression on a number of metrics on x86-64, most notably
> stress-ng.bigheap.realloc_calls_per_sec - indicating a 37.3% regression in
> number of mremap() calls per second.
> 
> I was able to reproduce this locally on an intel x86-64 raptor lake system,
> noting an average of 143,857 realloc calls/sec (with a stddev of 4,531 or
> 3.1%) prior to this patch being applied, and 81,503 afterwards (stddev of
> 2,131 or 2.6%) - a 43.3% regression.
> 
> During testing I was able to determine that there was no meaningful
> difference in efforts to optimise the folio_pte_batch() operation, nor
> checking folio_test_large().
> 
> This is within expectation, as a regression this large is likely to
> indicate we are accessing memory that is not yet in a cache line (and
> perhaps may even cause a main memory fetch).
> 
> The expectation by those discussing this from the start was that
> vm_normal_folio() (invoked by mremap_folio_pte_batch()) would likely be the
> culprit due to having to retrieve memory from the vmemmap (which mremap()
> page table moves does not otherwise do, meaning this is inevitably cold
> memory).
> 
> I was able to definitively determine that this theory is indeed correct and
> the cause of the issue.
> 
> The solution is to restore part of an approach previously discarded on
> review, that is to invoke pte_batch_hint() which explicitly determines,
> through reference to the PTE alone (thus no vmemmap lookup), what the PTE
> batch size may be.
> 
> On platforms other than arm64 this is currently hardcoded to return 1, so
> this naturally resolves the issue for x86-64, and for arm64 introduces
> little to no overhead as the pte cache line will be hot.
> 
> With this patch applied, we move from 81,503 realloc calls/sec to
> 138,701 (stddev of 496.1 or 0.4%), which is a -3.6% regression, however
> accounting for the variance in the original result, this is broadly
> restoring performance to its prior state.
> 
> Reported-by: kernel test robot <oliver.sang@intel.com>
> Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/oe-lkp/202508071609.4e743d7c-lkp@intel.com
> Fixes: f822a9a81a31 ("mm: optimize mremap() by PTE batching")
> Signed-off-by: Lorenzo Stoakes <lorenzo.stoakes@oracle.com>

Acked-by: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz>

Sadly, the improvement will be far from 3888.9% :(

> ---
>  mm/mremap.c | 4 ++++
>  1 file changed, 4 insertions(+)
> 
> diff --git a/mm/mremap.c b/mm/mremap.c
> index 677a4d744df9..9afa8cd524f5 100644
> --- a/mm/mremap.c
> +++ b/mm/mremap.c
> @@ -179,6 +179,10 @@ static int mremap_folio_pte_batch(struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long addr
>  	if (max_nr == 1)
>  		return 1;
> 
> +	/* Avoid expensive folio lookup if we stand no chance of benefit. */
> +	if (pte_batch_hint(ptep, pte) == 1)
> +		return 1;
> +
>  	folio = vm_normal_folio(vma, addr, pte);
>  	if (!folio || !folio_test_large(folio))
>  		return 1;
> --
> 2.50.1