Re: [PATCH v7 06/12] khugepaged: introduce khugepaged_scan_bitmap for mTHP support

[Nico Pache <npache@redhat.com>]

On Wed, May 28, 2025 at 8:04 AM Baolin Wang
<baolin.wang@linux.alibaba.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 2025/5/28 17:26, David Hildenbrand wrote:
> > On 22.05.25 11:39, Baolin Wang wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> On 2025/5/21 18:23, Nico Pache wrote:
> >>> On Tue, May 20, 2025 at 4:09 AM Baolin Wang
> >>> <baolin.wang@linux.alibaba.com> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Sorry for late reply.
> >>>>
> >>>> On 2025/5/17 14:47, Nico Pache wrote:
> >>>>> On Thu, May 15, 2025 at 9:20 PM Baolin Wang
> >>>>> <baolin.wang@linux.alibaba.com> wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> On 2025/5/15 11:22, Nico Pache wrote:
> >>>>>>> khugepaged scans anons PMD ranges for potential collapse to a
> >>>>>>> hugepage.
> >>>>>>> To add mTHP support we use this scan to instead record chunks of
> >>>>>>> utilized
> >>>>>>> sections of the PMD.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> khugepaged_scan_bitmap uses a stack struct to recursively scan a
> >>>>>>> bitmap
> >>>>>>> that represents chunks of utilized regions. We can then determine
> >>>>>>> what
> >>>>>>> mTHP size fits best and in the following patch, we set this
> >>>>>>> bitmap while
> >>>>>>> scanning the anon PMD. A minimum collapse order of 2 is used as
> >>>>>>> this is
> >>>>>>> the lowest order supported by anon memory.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> max_ptes_none is used as a scale to determine how "full" an order
> >>>>>>> must
> >>>>>>> be before being considered for collapse.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> When attempting to collapse an order that has its order set to
> >>>>>>> "always"
> >>>>>>> lets always collapse to that order in a greedy manner without
> >>>>>>> considering the number of bits set.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Signed-off-by: Nico Pache <npache@redhat.com>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Sigh. You still haven't addressed or explained the issues I
> >>>>>> previously
> >>>>>> raised [1], so I don't know how to review this patch again...
> >>>>> Can you still reproduce this issue?
> >>>>
> >>>> Yes, I can still reproduce this issue with today's (5/20) mm-new
> >>>> branch.
> >>>>
> >>>> I've disabled PMD-sized THP in my system:
> >>>> [root]# cat /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled
> >>>> always madvise [never]
> >>>> [root]# cat
> >>>> /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/hugepages-2048kB/enabled
> >>>> always inherit madvise [never]
> >>>>
> >>>> And I tried calling madvise() with MADV_COLLAPSE for anonymous memory,
> >>>> and I can still see it collapsing to a PMD-sized THP.
> >>> Hi Baolin ! Thank you for your reply and willingness to test again :)
> >>>
> >>> I didn't realize we were talking about madvise collapse-- this makes
> >>> sense now. I also figured out why I could "reproduce" it before. My
> >>> script was always enabling the THP settings in two places, and I only
> >>> commented out one to test this. But this time I was doing more manual
> >>> testing.
> >>>
> >>> The original design of madvise_collapse ignores the sysfs and
> >>> collapses even if you have an order disabled. I believe this behavior
> >>> is wrong, but by design. I spent some time playing around with madvise
> >>> collapses with and w/o my changes. This is not a new thing, I
> >>> reproduced the issue in 6.11 (Fedora 41), and I think its been
> >>> possible since the inception of madvise collapse 3 years ago. I
> >>> noticed a similar behavior on one of my RFC since it was "breaking"
> >>> selftests, and the fix was to reincorporate this broken sysfs
> >>> behavior.
> >>
> >> OK. Thanks for the explanation.
> >>
> >>> 7d8faaf15545 ("mm/madvise: introduce MADV_COLLAPSE sync hugepage
> >>> collapse")
> >>> "This call is independent of the system-wide THP sysfs settings, but
> >>> will fail for memory marked VM_NOHUGEPAGE."
> >>>
> >>> The second condition holds true (and fails for VM_NOHUGEPAGE), but I
> >>> dont know if we actually want madvise_collapse to be independent of
> >>> the system-wide.
> >>
> >> This design principle surprised me a bit, and I failed to find the
> >> reason in the commit log. I agree that "never should mean never," and we
> >> should respect the THP/mTHP sysfs setting. Additionally, for the
> >> 'shmem_enabled' sysfs interface controlled for shmem/tmpfs, THP collapse
> >> can still be prohibited through the 'deny' configuration. The rules here
> >> are somewhat confusing.
> >
> > I recall that we decided to overwrite "VM_NOHUGEPAGE", because the
> > assumption is that the same app that triggered MADV_NOHUGEPAGE triggers
> > the collapse. So the app decides on its own behavior.
> >
> > Similarly, allowing for collapsing in a VM without VM_HUGEPAGE in the
> > "madvise" mode would be fine.
> >
> > But in the "never" case, we should just "never" collapse.
>
> OK. Let's fix the "never" case first. Thanks.
Great, I will update that in the next version!
>