Re: (sashiko review) [PATCH] mm/damon/core: eliminate hot-path integer division in damon_max_nr_accesses()

SeongJae Park
2026-03-25T01:17:05Z

Forwarding Sashiko review for doing discussions via mails.

# review url: https://sashiko.dev/#/patchset/20260324154005.83651-1-objecting@objecting.org
# start of sashiko.dev inline review
commit ff5e227a18cd69435749b0aae0dc2c762c4f0a47
Author: Josh Law <objecting@objecting.org>

mm/damon/core: eliminate hot-path integer division in damon_max_nr_accesses()

Hardware integer division is slow. The function damon_max_nr_accesses(),
which is called very frequently, performs an integer division.
However, the struct damon_attrs already caches this exact ratio in the
internal field aggr_samples. We can eliminate the hardware division in
the hot path by simply returning aggr_samples.

> diff --git a/include/linux/damon.h b/include/linux/damon.h
> index d9a3babbafc1..04c8a052fcfb 100644
> --- a/include/linux/damon.h
> +++ b/include/linux/damon.h
> @@ -978,8 +978,7 @@ static inline bool damon_target_has_pid(const struct damon_ctx *ctx)
> static inline unsigned int damon_max_nr_accesses(const struct damon_attrs *attrs)
> {
> /* {aggr,sample}_interval are unsigned long, hence could overflow */
> - return min(attrs->aggr_interval / attrs->sample_interval,
> - (unsigned long)UINT_MAX);
> + return min_t(unsigned long, attrs->aggr_samples, UINT_MAX);
> }

If an administrator dynamically updates aggr_interval via sysfs and commits
the inputs, will attrs->aggr_samples be correctly recalculated?

If aggr_samples becomes stale, kdamond_fn() will compute the real aggregation
loop count and allow r->nr_accesses to increment up to the new bounds (for
example, 80 loops). Meanwhile, damon_max_nr_accesses() will return the
stale aggr_samples cache (for example, 20).

When evaluating schemes, damon_hot_score() normalizes r->nr_accesses against
this stale maximum, producing a freq_subscore that severely exceeds
DAMON_MAX_SUBSCORE. This causes the calculated hotness to exceed
DAMOS_MAX_SCORE.

For DAMOS_PAGEOUT actions used by damon_reclaim, damon_cold_score() returns
DAMOS_MAX_SCORE - hotness, yielding a highly negative score.

Could this negative score cause an out-of-bounds write on the
kernel heap when used as an array index?

mm/damon/core.c:damos_walk() {
...
c->regions_score_histogram[score] += damon_sz_region(r);
...
}

> diff --git a/mm/damon/core.c b/mm/damon/core.c
> index db6c67e52d2b..afb058f7da5c 100644
> --- a/mm/damon/core.c
> +++ b/mm/damon/core.c
> @@ -587,6 +587,7 @@ struct damon_ctx *damon_new_ctx(void)
> ctx->attrs.sample_interval = 5 * 1000;
> ctx->attrs.aggr_interval = 100 * 1000;
> ctx->attrs.ops_update_interval = 60 * 1000 * 1000;
> + ctx->attrs.aggr_samples = 20;

Since this value is cached here, but not updated when intervals change, does
it remain permanently stale during dynamic updates?

# end of sashiko.dev inline review
# review url: https://sashiko.dev/#/patchset/20260324154005.83651-1-objecting@objecting.org
#
# hkml [1] generated a draft of this mail. It can be regenerated
# using below command:
#
# hkml patch sashiko_dev --for_forwarding \
# 20260324154005.83651-1-objecting@objecting.org
#
# [1] https://github.com/sjp38/hackermail

Sent using hkml (https://github.com/sjp38/hackermail)