Re: [PATCH 00/45] hugetlb pagewalk unification

[Oscar Salvador <osalvador@suse.de>]

On Thu, Jul 11, 2024 at 02:15:38AM +0200, David Hildenbrand wrote:
> > > (as a side note, cont-pte/cont-pmd should primarily be a hint from arch code
> > > on how many entries we can batch, like we do in folio_pte_batch(); point is
> > > that we want to batch also on architectures where we don't have such bits,
> > > and prepare for architectures that implement various sizes of batching;
> > > IMHO, having cont-pte/cont-pmd checks in common code is likely the wrong
> > > approach. Again, folio_pte_batch() is where we tackled the problem
> > > differently from the THP perspective)
> > 
> > I must say I did not check folio_pte_batch() and I am totally ignorant
> > of what/how it does things.
> > I will have a look.
> > 
> > > I have an idea for a better page table walker API that would try batching
> > > most entries (under one PTL), and walkers can just register for the types
> > > they want. Hoping I will find some time to at least scetch the user
> > > interface soon.
> > > 
> > > That doesn't mean that this should block your work, but the
> > > cont-pte/cont/pmd hugetlb stuff is really nasty to handle here, and I don't
> > > particularly like where this is going.
> > 
> > Ok, let me take a step back then.
> > Previous versions of that RFC did not handle cont-{pte-pmd} wide in the
> > open, so let me go back to the drawing board and come up with something
> > that does not fiddle with cont- stuff in that way.
> > 
> > I might post here a small diff just to see if we are on the same page.
> > 
> > As usual, thanks a lot for your comments David!
> 
> Feel free to reach out to discuss ways forward. I think we should
> 
> (a) move to the automatic cont-pte setting as done for THPs via
>     set_ptes().
> (b) Batching PTE updates at all relevant places, so we get no change in
>     behavior: cont-pte bit will remain set.
> (c) Likely remove the use of cont-pte bits in hugetlb code for anything
>     that is not a present folio (i.e., where automatic cont-pte bit
>     setting would never set it). Migration entries might require
>     thought (we can easily batch to achieve the same thing, but the
>     behavior of hugetlb likely differs to the generic way of handling
>     migration entries on multiple ptes: reference the folio vs.
>     the respective subpages of the folio).

Uhm, I see, but I am bit confused.
Although related, this seems orthogonal to this series and more like for
a next-thing to do, right?

It is true that this series tries to handle cont-{pmd,pte} in the
pagewalk api for hugetlb vmas, but in order to raise less eye brows I
can come up with a way not to do that for now, so we do not fiddle with
cont-stuff in this series.


Or am I misunderstanding you?


-- 
Oscar Salvador
SUSE Labs