Re: [PATCH v9 07/10] mm: Device exclusive memory access

[Peter Xu <peterx@redhat.com>]

On Thu, May 27, 2021 at 01:35:39PM +1000, Alistair Popple wrote:
> > > + *
> > > + * @MMU_NOTIFY_EXCLUSIVE: to signal a device driver that the device will
> > > no + * longer have exclusive access to the page. May ignore the
> > > invalidation that's + * part of make_device_exclusive_range() if the
> > > owner field
> > > + * matches the value passed to make_device_exclusive_range().
> > 
> > Perhaps s/matches/does not match/?
> 
> No, "matches" is correct. The MMU_NOTIFY_EXCLUSIVE notifier is to notify a 
> listener that a range is being invalidated for the purpose of making the range 
> available for some device to have exclusive access to. Which does also mean a 
> device getting the notification no longer has exclusive access if it already 
> did.
> 
> A unique type is needed because when creating the range a driver needs to form 
> a mmu critical section (with mmu_interval_read_begin()/
> mmu_interval_read_end()) to ensure the entry remains valid long enough to 
> program the device pte and hasn't been invalidated.
> 
> However without a way of filtering any invalidations will result in a retry, 
> but make_device_exclusive_range() needs to do an invalidation during 
> installation of the entry. To avoid this causing infinite retries the driver 
> ignores specific invalidation events that it knows don't apply, ie. the 
> invalidations that are a result of that driver asking for device exclusive 
> entries.

OK I think I get it now.. so the driver checks both EXCLUSIVE and owner, if all
match it skips the notify, otherwise it's treated like all the rest.  Thanks.

However then it's still confusing (as I raised it too in previous comment) that
we use CLEAR when re-installing the valid pte.  It's merely against what CLEAR
means.

How about sending EXCLUSIVE for both mark/restore?  Just that when restore we
notify with owner==NULL telling that no one is owning it anymore so driver
needs to drop the ownership.  I assume your driver patch does not need change
too.  Would that be much cleaner than CLEAR?  I bet it also makes commenting
the new notify easier.

What do you think?

[...]

> > > +                                   vma->vm_mm, address, min(vma->vm_end,
> > > +                                   address + page_size(page)),
> > > args->owner); +     mmu_notifier_invalidate_range_start(&range);
> > > +
> > > +     while (page_vma_mapped_walk(&pvmw)) {
> > > +             /* Unexpected PMD-mapped THP? */
> > > +             VM_BUG_ON_PAGE(!pvmw.pte, page);
> > > +
> > > +             if (!pte_present(*pvmw.pte)) {
> > > +                     ret = false;
> > > +                     page_vma_mapped_walk_done(&pvmw);
> > > +                     break;
> > > +             }
> > > +
> > > +             subpage = page - page_to_pfn(page) + pte_pfn(*pvmw.pte);
> > 
> > I see that all pages passed in should be done after FOLL_SPLIT_PMD, so is
> > this needed?  Or say, should subpage==page always be true?
> 
> Not always, in the case of a thp there are small ptes which will get device 
> exclusive entries.

FOLL_SPLIT_PMD will first split the huge thp into smaller pages, then do
follow_page_pte() on them (in follow_pmd_mask):

	if (flags & FOLL_SPLIT_PMD) {
		int ret;
		page = pmd_page(*pmd);
		if (is_huge_zero_page(page)) {
			spin_unlock(ptl);
			ret = 0;
			split_huge_pmd(vma, pmd, address);
			if (pmd_trans_unstable(pmd))
				ret = -EBUSY;
		} else {
			spin_unlock(ptl);
			split_huge_pmd(vma, pmd, address);
			ret = pte_alloc(mm, pmd) ? -ENOMEM : 0;
		}

		return ret ? ERR_PTR(ret) :
			follow_page_pte(vma, address, pmd, flags, &ctx->pgmap);
	}

So I thought all pages are small pages?

-- 
Peter Xu