Re: [PATCH v1 2/2] mm: mTHP stats for pagecache folio allocations

[David Hildenbrand <david@redhat.com>]

>>> I guess the real supported orders are:
>>>
>>>     anon:
>>>       min order: 2
>>>       max order: PMD_ORDER
>>>     anon-shmem:
>>>       min order: 1
>>>       max order: MAX_PAGECACHE_ORDER
>>>     tmpfs-shmem:
>>>       min order: PMD_ORDER <= 11 ? PMD_ORDER : NONE
>>>       max order: PMD_ORDER <= 11 ? PMD_ORDER : NONE
>>>     file:
>>>       min order: 1
>>>       max order: MAX_PAGECACHE_ORDER
>>
>> That's my understanding. But not sure about anon-shmem really supporting
>> order-1, maybe we do.
> 
> Oh, I thought we only had the restriction for anon folios now (due to deferred
> split queue), so assumed it would just work. With Gavin's
> THP_ORDERS_ALL_FILE_DEFAULT change, that certainly implies that shmem must
> support order-1. If it doesn't then we we might want to tidy that further.
> 
> Baolin, perhaps you can confirm either way?

Currently there would not have been a way to enable it, right? (maybe 
I'm wrong)

> 
>>
>>>
>>> But today, controls and stats are exposed for:
>>>
>>>     anon:
>>>       min order: 2
>>>       max order: PMD_ORDER
>>>     anon-shmem:
>>>       min order: 2
>>>       max order: PMD_ORDER
>>>     tmpfs-shmem:
>>>       min order: PMD_ORDER
>>>       max order: PMD_ORDER
>>>     file:
>>>       min order: Nothing yet (this patch proposes 1)
>>>       max order: Nothing yet (this patch proposes MAX_PAGECACHE_ORDER)
>>>
>>> So I think there is definitely a bug for shmem where the minimum order control
>>> should be order-1 but its currently order-2.
>>
>> Maybe, did not play with that yet. Likely order-1 will work. (although probably
>> of questionable use :) )
> 
> You might have to expand on why its of "questionable use". I'd assume it has the
> same amount of value as using order-1 for regular page cache pages? i.e. half
> the number of objects to manage for the same amount of memory.

order-1 was recently added for the pagecache to get some device setups 
running (IIRC, where we cannot use order-0, because device blocksize > 
PAGE_SIZE).

You might be right about "half the number of objects", but likely just 
going for order-2, order-3, order-4 ... for shmem might be even better. 
And simply falling back to order-0 when you cannot get the larger orders.

I could have sworn you mentioned something like that in your 
"configurable orders for pagecache" RFC that I only briefly skimmed so 
far :P

... only enabling "order-1" and none of the other orders for shmem 
sounds rather "interesting".

But yeah, maybe there is valid use for it, so I'm all for allowing it if 
it can be done.

> 
>>
>>>
>>> I also wonder about PUD-order for DAX? We don't currently have a stat/control.
>>> If we wanted to add it in future, if we take the "expose all stats/controls for
>>> all orders" approach, we would end up extending all the way to PUD-order and all
>>> the orders between PMD and PUD would be dummy for all memory types. That really
>>> starts to feel odd, so I still favour only populating what's really supported.
>>
>> I would go further and say that calling the fsdax thing a THP is borderline
>> wrong and we should not expose any new toggles for it that way.
>>
>> It really behaves much more like hugetlb folios that can be PTE-mapped ... we
>> cannot split these things, and they are not allocated from the buddy. So I
>> wouldn't worry about fsdax for now.
>>
>> fsdax support for compound pages (now large folios) probably never should have
>> been glued to any THP toggle.
> 
> Yeah fair enough. I wasn't really arguing for adding any dax controls; I was
> just trying to think of examples as to why adding dummy controls might be a bad
> idea.

Yes.

>>
>>>
>>> I propose to fix shmem (extend down to 1, stop at MAX_PAGECACHE_ORDER) and
>>> continue with the approach of "indicating only what really exists" for v2.
>>>
>>> Shout if you disagree.
>>
>> Makes sense.
> 
> Excellent. I posted v2, which has these changes, yesterday afternoon. :)

Yes, still digging through mails ... in-between having roughly 1000 
meetings a day :)

-- 
Cheers,

David / dhildenb