Re: [PATCH 2/2] mm/memory-failure: improve large block size folio handling.

[Zi Yan <ziy@nvidia.com>]

On 11 Oct 2025, at 1:00, Matthew Wilcox wrote:

> On Sat, Oct 11, 2025 at 12:12:12PM +0800, Miaohe Lin wrote:
>>>  		folio_set_has_hwpoisoned(folio);
>>> -		if (try_to_split_thp_page(p, false) < 0) {
>>> +		/*
>>> +		 * If the folio cannot be split to order-0, kill the process,
>>> +		 * but split the folio anyway to minimize the amount of unusable
>>> +		 * pages.
>>> +		 */
>>> +		if (try_to_split_thp_page(p, new_order, false) || new_order) {
>>> +			/* get folio again in case the original one is split */
>>> +			folio = page_folio(p);
>>
>> If original folio A is split and the after-split new folio is B (A != B), will the
>> refcnt of folio A held above be missing? I.e. get_hwpoison_page() held the extra refcnt
>> of folio A, but we put the refcnt of folio B below. Is this a problem or am I miss
>> something?
>
> That's how split works.
>
> Zi Yan, the kernel-doc for folio_split() could use some attention.
> First, it's not kernel-doc; the comment opens with /* instead of /**.

Got it.

> Second, it says:
>
>  * After split, folio is left locked for caller.
>
> which isn't actually true, right?  The folio which contains

No, folio is indeed left locked. Currently folio_split() is
used by truncate_inode_partial_folio() via try_folio_split()
and the folio passed into truncate_inode_partial_folio() is
already locked by the caller and is unlocked by the caller as well.
The caller does not know anything about @split_at, thus
cannot unlock the folio containing @split_at.


> @split_at will be locked.  Also, it will contain the additional
> reference which was taken on @folio by the caller.

The same for the folio reference.

That is the reason we have @split_at and @lock_at for __folio_split().

I can see it is counter-intuitive. To change it, I might need
your help on how to change truncate_inode_partial_folio() callers,
since all of them are use @folio afterwards, without a reference,
I am not sure if their uses are safe anymore.

--
Best Regards,
Yan, Zi