Re: [RFC 2/6] mm/migrate_pages: split unmap_and_move() to _unmap() and _move()

From: Yang Shi <shy828301@gmail.com>
To: John Hubbard <jhubbard@nvidia.com>
Cc: "Huang, Ying" <ying.huang@intel.com>,
	Alistair Popple <apopple@nvidia.com>,
	linux-mm@kvack.org,  linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
	 Zi Yan <ziy@nvidia.com>,
	Baolin Wang <baolin.wang@linux.alibaba.com>,
	 Oscar Salvador <osalvador@suse.de>,
	Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org>
Subject: Re: [RFC 2/6] mm/migrate_pages: split unmap_and_move() to _unmap() and _move()
Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2022 20:39:23 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAHbLzkqS4Lf6oCjeNp7K17Qok_B8w26V9ywbTtdpXvUD_OcuUQ@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAHbLzkqTz9aNE=thZR2sw2SVf2YWOLCmSNgmEOJD587s+28A1w@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Sep 27, 2022 at 8:25 PM Yang Shi <shy828301@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Sep 27, 2022 at 7:57 PM John Hubbard <jhubbard@nvidia.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 9/27/22 19:14, Yang Shi wrote:
> > > IIRC, the writeback may not call generic_writepages. On my ext4
> > > filesystem, the writeback call stack looks like:
> > >
> > > @[
> > >     ext4_writepages+1
> > >     do_writepages+191
> > >     __writeback_single_inode+65
> > >     writeback_sb_inodes+477
> > >     __writeback_inodes_wb+76
> > >     wb_writeback+457
> > >     wb_workfn+680
> > >     process_one_work+485
> > >     worker_thread+80
> > >     kthread+231
> > >     ret_from_fork+34
> > > ]: 2
> > >
> >
> > Sure, that's fine for ext4, in that particular case, but
> >
> > a) not all filesystems have .writepages hooked up. That's why
> > do_writepages() checks for .writepages(), and falls back to
> > .writepage():
> >
> >         if (mapping->a_ops->writepages)
> >                 ret = mapping->a_ops->writepages(mapping, wbc);
> >         else
> >                 ret = generic_writepages(mapping, wbc);
> >
> > , and
> >
> > b) there are also a lot of places and ways to invoke writebacks. There
> > are periodic writebacks, and there are data integrity (WB_SYNC_ALL)
> > writebacks, and other places where a page needs to be cleaned--so, a lot
> > of call sites. Some of which will land on a .writepage() sometimes, even
> > now.
> >
> > For just one example, I see migrate.c's writeout() function directly
> > calling writepage():
> >
> >         rc = mapping->a_ops->writepage(&folio->page, &wbc);
>
> Thanks, John. You are right. I think "deprecated" is inaccurate,
> .writepage is actually no longer used in memory reclaim context, but
> it is still used for other contexts.

Hmm.. it is definitely used currently, but it seems like the plan is
to deprecate ->writepage finally IIUC. See
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/YvQYjpDHH5KckCrw@casper.infradead.org/

>
> Anyway I think what we tried to figure out in the first place is
> whether it is possible that filesystem writeback have dead lock with
> the new batch migration or not. I think the conclusion didn't change.
>
> >
> >
> > thanks,
> >
> > --
> > John Hubbard
> > NVIDIA
> >