Re: [Question]: major faults are still triggered after mlockall when numa balancing

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

"Yin, Fengwei" <fengwei.yin@intel.com> writes:

> On 11/10/2023 1:32 PM, Huang, Ying wrote:
>> Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org> writes:
>> 
>>> On Thu, Nov 09, 2023 at 09:47:24PM +0800, zhangpeng (AS) wrote:
>>>> There is a stage in numa fault which will set pte as 0 in do_numa_page() :
>>>> ptep_modify_prot_start() will clear the vmf->pte, until
>>>> ptep_modify_prot_commit() assign a value to the vmf->pte.
>>>
>>> [...]
>>>
>>>> Our problem scenario is as follows:
>>>>
>>>> task 1                      task 2
>>>> ------                      ------
>>>> /* scan global variables */
>>>> do_numa_page()
>>>>   spin_lock(vmf->ptl)
>>>>   ptep_modify_prot_start()
>>>>   /* set vmf->pte as null */
>>>>                             /* Access global variables */
>>>>                             handle_pte_fault()
>>>>                               /* no pte lock */
>>>>                               do_pte_missing()
>>>>                                 do_fault()
>>>>                                   do_read_fault()
>>>>   ptep_modify_prot_commit()
>>>>   /* ptep update done */
>>>>   pte_unmap_unlock(vmf->pte, vmf->ptl)
>>>>                                     do_fault_around()
>>>>                                     __do_fault()
>>>>                                       filemap_fault()
>>>>                                         /* page cache is not available
>>>>                                         and a major fault is triggered */
>>>>                                         do_sync_mmap_readahead()
>>>>                                         /* page_not_uptodate and goto
>>>>                                         out_retry. */
>>>>
>>>> Is there any way to avoid such a major fault?
>>>
>>> Yes, this looks like a bug.
>>>
>>> It seems to me that the easiest way to fix this is not to zero the pte
>>> but to make it protnone?  That would send task 2 into do_numa_page()
>>> where it would take the ptl, then check pte_same(), see that it's
>>> changed and goto out, which will end up retrying the fault.
>> 
>> There are other places in the kernel where the PTE is cleared, for
>> example, move_ptes() in mremap.c.  IIUC, we need to audit all them.
>> 
>> Another possible solution is to check PTE again with PTL held before
>> reading in file data.  This will increase the overhead of major fault
>> path.  Is it acceptable?
> What if we check the PTE without page table lock acquired?

The PTE is zeroed temporarily only with PTL held.  So, if we acquire the
PTL in filemap_fault() and check the PTE, the PTE which is zeroed in
do_numa_page() will be non-zero now.  So we can avoid the major fault.

But, if we don't acquire the PTL, the PTE may still be zero.

--
Best Regards,
Huang, Ying

> Regards
> Yin, Fengwei
>
>> 
>>> I'm not particularly expert at page table manipulation, so I'll let
>>> somebody who is propose an actual patch.  Or you could try to do it?
>> 
>> --
>> Best Regards,
>> Huang, Ying