From: Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>
To: Nicholas Piggin <npiggin@gmail.com>,
Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Anton Blanchard <anton@ozlabs.org>,
linux-arch@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
linux-mm@kvack.org, linuxppc-dev@lists.ozlabs.org,
Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>,
Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v4 2/4] lazy tlb: allow lazy tlb mm refcounting to be configurable
Date: Sun, 13 Jun 2021 20:52:38 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <02e16a2f-2f58-b4f2-d335-065e007bcea2@kernel.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <1623629185.fxzl5xdab6.astroid@bobo.none>
On 6/13/21 5:45 PM, Nicholas Piggin wrote:
> Excerpts from Andy Lutomirski's message of June 9, 2021 2:20 am:
>> On 6/4/21 6:42 PM, Nicholas Piggin wrote:
>>> Add CONFIG_MMU_TLB_REFCOUNT which enables refcounting of the lazy tlb mm
>>> when it is context switched. This can be disabled by architectures that
>>> don't require this refcounting if they clean up lazy tlb mms when the
>>> last refcount is dropped. Currently this is always enabled, which is
>>> what existing code does, so the patch is effectively a no-op.
>>>
>>> Rename rq->prev_mm to rq->prev_lazy_mm, because that's what it is.
>>
>> I am in favor of this approach, but I would be a lot more comfortable
>> with the resulting code if task->active_mm were at least better
>> documented and possibly even guarded by ifdefs.
>
> active_mm is fairly well documented in Documentation/active_mm.rst IMO.
> I don't think anything has changed in 20 years, I don't know what more
> is needed, but if you can add to documentation that would be nice. Maybe
> moving a bit of that into .c and .h files?
>
Quoting from that file:
- however, we obviously need to keep track of which address space we
"stole" for such an anonymous user. For that, we have "tsk->active_mm",
which shows what the currently active address space is.
This isn't even true right now on x86. With your patch applied:
To support all that, the "struct mm_struct" now has two counters: a
"mm_users" counter that is how many "real address space users" there are,
and a "mm_count" counter that is the number of "lazy" users (ie anonymous
users) plus one if there are any real users.
isn't even true any more.
>> x86 bare metal currently does not need the core lazy mm refcounting, and
>> x86 bare metal *also* does not need ->active_mm. Under the x86 scheme,
>> if lazy mm refcounting were configured out, ->active_mm could become a
>> dangling pointer, and this makes me extremely uncomfortable.
>>
>> So I tend to think that, depending on config, the core code should
>> either keep ->active_mm [1] alive or get rid of it entirely.
>
> I don't actually know what you mean.
>
> core code needs the concept of an "active_mm". This is the mm that your
> kernel threads are using, even in the unmerged CONFIG_LAZY_TLB=n patch,
> active_mm still points to init_mm for kernel threads.
Core code does *not* need this concept. First, it's wrong on x86 since
at least 4.15. Any core code that actually assumes that ->active_mm is
"active" for any sensible definition of the word active is wrong.
Fortunately there is no such code.
I looked through all active_mm references in core code. We have:
kernel/sched/core.c: it's all refcounting, although it's a bit tangled
with membarrier.
kernel/kthread.c: same. refcounting and membarrier stuff.
kernel/exit.c: exit_mm() a BUG_ON().
kernel/fork.c: initialization code and a warning.
kernel/cpu.c: cpu offline stuff. wouldn't be needed if active_mm went away.
fs/exec.c: nothing of interest
I didn't go through drivers, but I maintain my point. active_mm is
there for refcounting. So please don't just make it even more confusing
-- do your performance improvement, but improve the code at the same
time: get rid of active_mm, at least on architectures that opt out of
the refcounting.
>
> We could hide that idea behind an active_mm() function that would always
> return &init_mm if mm==NULL, but you still have the concept of an active
> mm and a pointer that callers must not access after free (because some
> cases will be CONFIG_LAZY_TLB=y).
>
>> [1] I don't really think it belongs in task_struct at all. It's not a
>> property of the task. It's the *per-cpu* mm that the core code is
>> keeping alive for lazy purposes. How about consolidating it with the
>> copy in rq?
>
> I agree it's conceptually a per-cpu property. I don't know why it was
> done this way, maybe it was just convenient and works well for mm and
> active_mm to be adjacent. Linus might have a better insight.
>
>> I guess the short summary of my opinion is that I like making this
>> configurable, but I do not like the state of the code.
>
> I don't think I'd object to moving active_mm to rq and converting all
> usages to active_mm() while we're there, it would make things a bit
> more configurable. But I don't see it making core code fundamentally
> less complex... if you're referring to the x86 mm switching monstrosity,
> then that's understandable, but I admit I haven't spent enough time
> looking at it to make a useful comment. A patch would be enlightening,
> I have the leftover CONFIG_LAZY_TLB=n patch if you were thinking of
> building on that I can send it to you.
>
> Thanks,
> Nick
>
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2021-06-14 3:52 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 24+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2021-06-05 1:42 [PATCH v4 0/4] shoot lazy tlbs Nicholas Piggin
2021-06-05 1:42 ` [PATCH v4 1/4] lazy tlb: introduce lazy mm refcount helper functions Nicholas Piggin
2021-06-07 23:49 ` Andrew Morton
2021-06-08 1:39 ` Nicholas Piggin
2021-06-08 1:48 ` Andrew Morton
2021-06-08 4:11 ` Nicholas Piggin
2021-06-05 1:42 ` [PATCH v4 2/4] lazy tlb: allow lazy tlb mm refcounting to be configurable Nicholas Piggin
2021-06-08 3:11 ` Nicholas Piggin
2021-06-08 16:20 ` Andy Lutomirski
2021-06-14 0:45 ` Nicholas Piggin
2021-06-14 3:52 ` Andy Lutomirski [this message]
2021-06-14 4:14 ` Nicholas Piggin
2021-06-14 4:47 ` Nicholas Piggin
2021-06-14 5:21 ` Nicholas Piggin
2021-06-14 16:20 ` Andy Lutomirski
2021-06-15 0:55 ` Nicholas Piggin
2021-06-16 0:14 ` Andy Lutomirski
2021-06-16 1:02 ` Nicholas Piggin
2021-06-17 0:32 ` Nicholas Piggin
2021-06-05 1:42 ` [PATCH v4 3/4] lazy tlb: shoot lazies, a non-refcounting lazy tlb option Nicholas Piggin
2021-06-08 3:15 ` Nicholas Piggin
2021-06-05 1:42 ` [PATCH v4 4/4] powerpc/64s: enable MMU_LAZY_TLB_SHOOTDOWN Nicholas Piggin
2021-06-07 23:52 ` Andrew Morton
2021-06-08 2:13 ` Nicholas Piggin
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