Re: [v2 PATCH] mm: move_pages: return valid node id in status if the page is already on the target node

[Qian Cai <cai@lca.pw>]

> On Dec 4, 2019, at 11:21 PM, Yang Shi <yang.shi@linux.alibaba.com> wrote:
> 
> Felix Abecassis reports move_pages() would return random status if the
> pages are already on the target node by the below test program:
> 
> ---8<---
> 
> int main(void)
> {
>    const long node_id = 1;
>    const long page_size = sysconf(_SC_PAGESIZE);
>    const int64_t num_pages = 8;
> 
>    unsigned long nodemask =  1 << node_id;
>    long ret = set_mempolicy(MPOL_BIND, &nodemask, sizeof(nodemask));
>    if (ret < 0)
>        return (EXIT_FAILURE);
> 
>    void **pages = malloc(sizeof(void*) * num_pages);
>    for (int i = 0; i < num_pages; ++i) {
>        pages[i] = mmap(NULL, page_size, PROT_WRITE | PROT_READ,
>                MAP_PRIVATE | MAP_POPULATE | MAP_ANONYMOUS,
>                -1, 0);
>        if (pages[i] == MAP_FAILED)
>            return (EXIT_FAILURE);
>    }
> 
>    ret = set_mempolicy(MPOL_DEFAULT, NULL, 0);
>    if (ret < 0)
>        return (EXIT_FAILURE);
> 
>    int *nodes = malloc(sizeof(int) * num_pages);
>    int *status = malloc(sizeof(int) * num_pages);
>    for (int i = 0; i < num_pages; ++i) {
>        nodes[i] = node_id;
>        status[i] = 0xd0; /* simulate garbage values */
>    }
> 
>    ret = move_pages(0, num_pages, pages, nodes, status, MPOL_MF_MOVE);
>    printf("move_pages: %ld\n", ret);
>    for (int i = 0; i < num_pages; ++i)
>        printf("status[%d] = %d\n", i, status[i]);
> }
> ---8<---
> 
> Then running the program would return nonsense status values:
> $ ./move_pages_bug
> move_pages: 0
> status[0] = 208
> status[1] = 208
> status[2] = 208
> status[3] = 208
> status[4] = 208
> status[5] = 208
> status[6] = 208
> status[7] = 208
> 
> This is because the status is not set if the page is already on the
> target node, but move_pages() should return valid status as long as it
> succeeds.  The valid status may be errno or node id.
> 
> We can't simply initialize status array to zero since the pages may be
> not on node 0.  Fix it by updating status with node id which the page is
> already on.  And, it looks we have to update the status inside
> add_page_for_migration() since the page struct is not available outside
> it.
> 
> Make add_page_for_migration() return 1 if store_status() is failed in
> order to not mix up the status value since -EFAULT is also a valid
> status.

Don’t really feel it is a bug after all. As you mentioned, the manpage was rather poorly written. Why it is not a good idea just update the manpage or/and code comments instead to document the current behavior?