From: Michal Hocko <mhocko@kernel.org>
To: David Rientjes <rientjes@google.com>
Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz>,
Alexey Dobriyan <adobriyan@gmail.com>,
"Kirill A. Shutemov" <kirill.shutemov@linux.intel.com>,
linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-mm@kvack.org,
linux-api@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH] mm, proc: report PR_SET_THP_DISABLE in proc
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2018 10:22:54 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20181115092254.GJ23831@dhcp22.suse.cz> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20181115090242.GH23831@dhcp22.suse.cz>
On Thu 15-11-18 10:02:42, Michal Hocko wrote:
> On Wed 14-11-18 13:41:12, David Rientjes wrote:
> > On Wed, 14 Nov 2018, Michal Hocko wrote:
> >
> > > > > > Do you know of any other userspace except your usecase? Is there
> > > > > > anything fundamental that would prevent a proper API adoption for you?
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Yes, it would require us to go back in time and build patched binaries.
> > > >
> > > > I read that as there is a fundamental problem to update existing
> > > > binaries. If that is the case then there surely is no way around it
> > > > and another sad page in the screwed up APIs book we provide.
> > > >
> > > > But I was under impression that the SW stack which actually does the
> > > > monitoring is under your controll. Moreover I was under impression that
> > > > you do not use the current vanilla kernel so there is no need for an
> > > > immediate change on your end. It is trivial to come up with a backward
> > > > compatible way to check for the new flag (if it is not present then
> > > > fallback to vma flags).
> > > >
> >
> > The userspace had a single way to determine if thp had been disabled for a
> > specific vma and that was broken with your commit. We have since fixed
> > it. Modifying our software stack to start looking for some field
> > somewhere else will not help anybody else that this has affected or will
> > affect. I'm interested in not breaking userspace, not trying a wait and
> > see approach to see if anybody else complains once we start looking for
> > some other field. The risk outweighs the reward, it already broke us, and
> > I'd prefer not to even open the possibility of breaking anybody else.
>
> I very much agree on "do not break userspace" part but this is kind of
> gray area. VMA flags are a deep internal implementation detail and
> nobody should really depend on it for anything important. The original
> motivation for introducing it was CRIU where it is kind of
> understandable. I would argue they should find a different way but it is
> just too late for them.
>
> For this particular case there was no other bug report except for yours
> and if it is possible to fix it on your end then I would really love to
> make the a sensible user interface to query the status. If we are going
> to change the semantic of the exported flag again then we risk yet
> another breakage.
>
> Therefore I am asking whether changing your particular usecase to a new
> interface is possible because that would allow to have a longerm
> sensible user interface rather than another kludge which still doesn't
> cover all the usecases (e.g. there is no way to reliably query the
> madvise status after your patch).
Btw. this is essentially the same kind of problem as
http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20181002100531.GC4135@quack2.suse.cz
where the conclusion was to come up with a saner interface rather than
mimic the previous one.
--
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2018-11-15 9:22 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 40+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
[not found] <alpine.DEB.2.21.1809241054050.224429@chino.kir.corp.google.com>
2018-09-24 18:25 ` [patch] mm, thp: always specify ineligible vmas as nh in smaps Vlastimil Babka
2018-09-24 19:17 ` David Rientjes
2018-09-24 19:30 ` [patch v2] " David Rientjes
2018-09-24 19:56 ` Michal Hocko
2018-09-24 20:02 ` Michal Hocko
2018-09-24 20:43 ` Vlastimil Babka
2018-09-25 5:50 ` Michal Hocko
2018-09-25 19:52 ` David Rientjes
2018-09-25 20:29 ` Michal Hocko
2018-09-25 21:45 ` David Rientjes
2018-09-25 22:04 ` Andrew Morton
2018-09-26 0:55 ` David Rientjes
2018-09-26 6:06 ` Michal Hocko
2018-10-02 11:28 ` [RFC PATCH] mm, proc: report PR_SET_THP_DISABLE in proc Michal Hocko
2018-10-02 20:29 ` David Rientjes
2018-10-03 7:36 ` Michal Hocko
2018-10-03 22:51 ` David Rientjes
2018-10-04 5:58 ` Michal Hocko
2018-10-04 9:15 ` David Rientjes
2018-10-04 9:46 ` Michal Hocko
2018-10-04 18:34 ` David Rientjes
2018-10-09 8:33 ` Michal Hocko
2018-10-15 15:03 ` Michal Hocko
2018-10-15 22:25 ` David Rientjes
2018-10-16 10:48 ` Michal Hocko
2018-10-16 21:24 ` David Rientjes
2018-10-17 7:05 ` Michal Hocko
2018-10-17 19:59 ` David Rientjes
2018-10-18 7:00 ` Michal Hocko
2018-11-14 13:23 ` Michal Hocko
2018-11-14 21:41 ` David Rientjes
2018-11-15 9:02 ` Michal Hocko
2018-11-15 9:22 ` Michal Hocko [this message]
2018-11-19 22:05 ` David Rientjes
2018-11-20 7:48 ` Michal Hocko
2018-10-03 17:33 ` Mike Rapoport
2018-09-25 21:50 ` [patch v3] mm, thp: always specify disabled vmas as nh in smaps David Rientjes
2018-09-26 6:12 ` Michal Hocko
2018-09-26 7:17 ` Michal Hocko
2018-09-26 8:40 ` Vlastimil Babka
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