Re: [PATCH v2 00/11] mempolicy2, mbind2, and weighted interleave

["Huang, Ying" <ying.huang@intel.com>]

Gregory Price <gregory.price@memverge.com> writes:

> On Mon, Dec 11, 2023 at 01:53:40PM +0800, Huang, Ying wrote:
>> Hi, Gregory,
>> 
>> Thanks for updated version!
>> 
>> Gregory Price <gourry.memverge@gmail.com> writes:
>> 
>> > v2:
>> >   changes / adds:
>> > - flattened weight matrix to an array at requested of Ying Huang
>> > - Updated ABI docs per Davidlohr Bueso request
>> > - change uapi structure to use aligned/fixed-length members as
>> >   Suggested-by: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>
>> > - Implemented weight fetch logic in get_mempolicy2
>> > - mbind2 was changed to take (iovec,len) as function arguments
>> >   rather than add them to the uapi structure, since they describe
>> >   where to apply the mempolicy - as opposed to being part of it.
>> >
>> >     The sysfs structure is designed as follows.
>> >
>> >       $ tree /sys/kernel/mm/mempolicy/
>> >       /sys/kernel/mm/mempolicy/
>> >       ├── possible_nodes
>> >       └── weighted_interleave
>> >           ├── nodeN
>> >           │   └── weight
>> >           └── nodeN+X
>> >               └── weight
>> >
>> > 'mempolicy' is added to '/sys/kernel/mm/' as a control group for
>> > the mempolicy subsystem.
>> 
>> Is it good to add 'mempolicy' in '/sys/kernel/mm/numa'?  The advantage
>> is that 'mempolicy' here is in fact "NUMA mempolicy".  The disadvantage
>> is one more directory nesting.  I have no strong opinion here.
>> 
>
> i don't have a strong opinion here.
>
>> > 'possible_nodes' is added to 'mm/mempolicy' to help describe the
>> > expected structures under mempolicy directorys. For example,
>> > possible_nodes describes what nodeN directories wille exist under
>> > the weighted_interleave directory.
>> 
>> We have '/sys/devices/system/node/possible' already.  Is this just a
>> duplication?  If so, why?  And, the possible nodes can be gotten via
>> contents of 'weighted_interleave' too.
>> 
>
> I'll remove it
>
>> And it appears not necessary to make 'weighted_interleave/nodeN'
>> directory.  Why not just make it a file.
>> 
>
> Originally I wasn't sure whether there would be more attributes, but
> this is probably fine.  I'll change it.
>
>> And, can we add a way to reset weight to the default value?  For example
>> `echo > nodeN/weight` or `echo > nodeN`.
>> 
>
> Seems reasonable.
>
>> > =====================================================================
>> > (Patches 7-10) set_mempolicy2, get_mempolicy2, mbind2
>> >
>> > These interfaces are the 'extended' counterpart to their relatives.
>> > They use the userland 'struct mpol_args' structure to communicate a
>> > complete mempolicy configuration to the kernel.  This structure
>> > looks very much like the kernel-internal 'struct mempolicy_args':
>> >
>> > struct mpol_args {
>> >         /* Basic mempolicy settings */
>> >         __u16 mode;
>> >         __u16 mode_flags;
>> >         __s32 home_node;
>> >         __aligned_u64 pol_nodes;
>> >         __u64 pol_maxnodes;
>> >         __u64 addr;
>> >         __s32 policy_node;
>> >         __s32 addr_node;
>> >         __aligned_u64 *il_weights;      /* of size pol_maxnodes */
>> > };
>> 
>> This looks unnecessarily complex.  I don't think that it's a good idea
>> to use exact same parameter for all 3 syscalls.
>>
>
> It is exactly as complex as mempolicy is.  Everything here is already
> described in the existing interfaces (except il_weights).
>
>> For example, can we use something as below?
>> 
>>   long set_mempolicy2(int mode, const unsigned long *nodemask, unsigned int *il_weights,
>>                           unsigned long maxnode, unsigned long home_node,
>>                           unsigned long flags);
>> 
>>   long mbind2(unsigned long start, unsigned long len,
>>                           int mode, const unsigned long *nodemask, unsigned int *il_weights,
>>                           unsigned long maxnode, unsigned long home_node,
>>                           unsigned long flags);
>> 
>
> Your definition of mbind2 is impossible.
>
> Neither of these interfaces solve the extensibility issue.  If a new
> policy which requires a new format of data arrives, we can look forward
> to set_mempolicy3 and mbind3.

IIUC, we will not over-engineering too much.  It's hard to predict the
requirements in the future.

>> A struct may be defined to hold mempolicy iteself.
>> 
>> struct mpol {
>>         int mode;
>>         unsigned int home_node;
>>         const unsigned long *nodemask;
>>         unsigned int *il_weights;
>>         unsigned int maxnode;
>> };
>> 
>
> addr could be pulled out for get_mempolicy2, so i will do that
>
> 'addr_node' and 'policy_node' are warts that came from the original
> get_mempolicy.  Removing them increases the complexity of handling
> arguments in the common get_mempolicy code.
>
> I could probably just drop support for retrieving the addr_node from
> get_mempolicy2, since it's already possible with get_mempolicy.  So I
> will do that.

If it's necessary, we can add another struct for get_mempolicy2().  But
I don't think that it's necessary to add get_mempolicy2() specific
parameters for set_mempolicy2() or mbind2().

--
Best Regards,
Huang, Ying