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From: "Kirill A. Shutemov" <kirill@shutemov.name>
To: Michal Hocko <mhocko@kernel.org>
Cc: Minchan Kim <minchan@kernel.org>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
	linux-mm <linux-mm@kvack.org>,
	linux-api@vger.kernel.org, oleksandr@redhat.com,
	Suren Baghdasaryan <surenb@google.com>,
	Tim Murray <timmurray@google.com>,
	Daniel Colascione <dancol@google.com>,
	Sandeep Patil <sspatil@google.com>,
	Sonny Rao <sonnyrao@google.com>,
	Brian Geffon <bgeffon@google.com>,
	Johannes Weiner <hannes@cmpxchg.org>,
	Shakeel Butt <shakeelb@google.com>,
	John Dias <joaodias@google.com>,
	ktkhai@virtuozzo.com, christian.brauner@ubuntu.com,
	sjpark@amazon.de
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 2/5] mm: introduce external memory hinting API
Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2020 18:58:37 +0300	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20200117155837.bowyjpndfiym6cgs@box> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20200117115225.GV19428@dhcp22.suse.cz>

On Fri, Jan 17, 2020 at 12:52:25PM +0100, Michal Hocko wrote:
> On Thu 16-01-20 15:59:50, Minchan Kim wrote:
> > There is usecase that System Management Software(SMS) want to give
> > a memory hint like MADV_[COLD|PAGEEOUT] to other processes and
> > in the case of Android, it is the ActivityManagerService.
> > 
> > It's similar in spirit to madvise(MADV_WONTNEED), but the information
> > required to make the reclaim decision is not known to the app. Instead,
> > it is known to the centralized userspace daemon(ActivityManagerService),
> > and that daemon must be able to initiate reclaim on its own without
> > any app involvement.
> > 
> > To solve the issue, this patch introduces new syscall process_madvise(2).
> > It uses pidfd of an external processs to give the hint.
> > 
> >  int process_madvise(int pidfd, void *addr, size_t length, int advise,
> > 			unsigned long flag);
> > 
> > Since it could affect other process's address range, only privileged
> > process(CAP_SYS_PTRACE) or something else(e.g., being the same UID)
> > gives it the right to ptrace the process could use it successfully.
> > The flag argument is reserved for future use if we need to extend the
> > API.
> > 
> > I think supporting all hints madvise has/will supported/support to
> > process_madvise is rather risky. Because we are not sure all hints make
> > sense from external process and implementation for the hint may rely on
> > the caller being in the current context so it could be error-prone.
> > Thus, I just limited hints as MADV_[COLD|PAGEOUT] in this patch.
> > 
> > If someone want to add other hints, we could hear hear the usecase and
> > review it for each hint. It's more safe for maintainace rather than
> > introducing a buggy syscall but hard to fix it later.
> 
> I have brought this up when we discussed this in the past but there is
> no reflection on that here so let me bring that up again. 
> 
> I believe that the interface has an inherent problem that it is racy.
> The external entity needs to know the address space layout of the target
> process to do anyhing useful on it. The address space is however under
> the full control of the target process though and the external entity
> has no means to find out that the layout has changed. So
> time-to-check-time-to-act is an inherent problem.
> 
> This is a serious design flaw and it should be explained why it doesn't
> matter or how to use the interface properly to prevent that problem.

I agree, it looks flawed.

Also I don't see what System Management Software can generically do on
sub-process level. I mean how can it decide which part of address space is
less important than other.

I see how a manager can indicate that this process (or a group of
processes) is less important than other, but on per-addres-range basis?

-- 
 Kirill A. Shutemov

  reply	other threads:[~2020-01-17 15:58 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 39+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2020-01-16 23:59 [PATCH v2 0/5] introduce memory hinting API for external process Minchan Kim
2020-01-16 23:59 ` [PATCH v2 1/5] mm: factor out madvise's core functionality Minchan Kim
2020-01-17 10:02   ` Kirill Tkhai
2020-01-17 18:14     ` Minchan Kim
2020-01-16 23:59 ` [PATCH v2 2/5] mm: introduce external memory hinting API Minchan Kim
2020-01-17 11:52   ` Michal Hocko
2020-01-17 15:58     ` Kirill A. Shutemov [this message]
2020-01-17 17:32       ` Minchan Kim
2020-01-17 21:26         ` Kirill A. Shutemov
2020-01-18  9:40           ` SeongJae Park
2020-01-19 16:14           ` sspatil
2020-01-20  7:58             ` Michal Hocko
2020-01-20 10:39               ` Kirill Tkhai
2020-01-21 18:32               ` Minchan Kim
2020-01-22  8:28                 ` Michal Hocko
2020-01-22  9:36                   ` SeongJae Park
2020-01-22 10:02                     ` Michal Hocko
2020-01-22 13:28                       ` SeongJae Park
2020-01-23  1:41                   ` Minchan Kim
2020-01-23  9:13                     ` Michal Hocko
2020-01-21 18:11           ` Minchan Kim
2020-01-22 10:44             ` Oleksandr Natalenko
2020-01-23  1:43               ` Minchan Kim
2020-01-23  7:29                 ` Oleksandr Natalenko
2020-01-17 17:25     ` Minchan Kim
2020-01-20  8:03       ` Michal Hocko
2020-01-20 10:24     ` Kirill Tkhai
2020-01-20 11:27       ` Michal Hocko
2020-01-20 12:39         ` Kirill A. Shutemov
2020-01-20 13:24           ` Michal Hocko
2020-01-20 14:21             ` Kirill A. Shutemov
2020-01-20 15:44               ` Michal Hocko
2020-01-21 18:43             ` Minchan Kim
2020-01-16 23:59 ` [PATCH v2 3/5] mm/madvise: employ mmget_still_valid for write lock Minchan Kim
2020-01-16 23:59 ` [PATCH v2 4/5] mm/madvise: allow KSM hints for remote API Minchan Kim
2020-01-17 10:13   ` Kirill Tkhai
2020-01-17 12:34     ` Oleksandr Natalenko
2020-01-21 17:45       ` Minchan Kim
2020-01-16 23:59 ` [PATCH v2 5/5] mm: support both pid and pidfd for process_madvise Minchan Kim

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