Re: [PATCH] iommu/iova: Improve 32-bit free space estimate

Re: [PATCH] iommu/iova: Improve 32-bit free space estimate

[Miles Chen]

Hi Robin,

> For various reasons based on the allocator behaviour and typical
> use-cases at the time, when the max32_alloc_size optimisation was
> introduced it seemed reasonable to couple the reset of the tracked
> size to the update of cached32_node upon freeing a relevant IOVA.
> However, since subsequent optimisations focused on helping genuine
> 32-bit devices make best use of even more limited address spaces, it
> is now a lot more likely for cached32_node to be anywhere in a "full"
> 32-bit address space, and as such more likely for space to become
> available from IOVAs below that node being freed.
> 
> At this point, the short-cut in __cached_rbnode_delete_update() really
> doesn't hold up any more, and we need to fix the logic to reliably
> provide the expected behaviour. We still want cached32_node to only move
> upwards, but we should reset the allocation size if *any* 32-bit space
> has become available.
> 
> Reported-by: Yunfei Wang <yf.wang@mediatek.com>
> Signed-off-by: Robin Murphy <robin.murphy@arm.com>

Would you mind adding:

Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org> 

to this path? I checked and I think the patch can be applied to
5.4 and later.

thanks,
Miles

Re: [PATCH] iommu/iova: Improve 32-bit free space estimate

[Joerg Roedel]

On Fri, Mar 04, 2022 at 07:36:46AM +0800, Miles Chen wrote:
> Hi Robin,
> 
> > For various reasons based on the allocator behaviour and typical
> > use-cases at the time, when the max32_alloc_size optimisation was
> > introduced it seemed reasonable to couple the reset of the tracked
> > size to the update of cached32_node upon freeing a relevant IOVA.
> > However, since subsequent optimisations focused on helping genuine
> > 32-bit devices make best use of even more limited address spaces, it
> > is now a lot more likely for cached32_node to be anywhere in a "full"
> > 32-bit address space, and as such more likely for space to become
> > available from IOVAs below that node being freed.
> > 
> > At this point, the short-cut in __cached_rbnode_delete_update() really
> > doesn't hold up any more, and we need to fix the logic to reliably
> > provide the expected behaviour. We still want cached32_node to only move
> > upwards, but we should reset the allocation size if *any* 32-bit space
> > has become available.
> > 
> > Reported-by: Yunfei Wang <yf.wang@mediatek.com>
> > Signed-off-by: Robin Murphy <robin.murphy@arm.com>
> 
> Would you mind adding:
> 
> Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org>

Applied without stable tag for now. If needed, please consider
re-sending it for stable when this patch is merged upstream.

Regards,

	Joerg

Re: [PATCH] iommu/iova: Improve 32-bit free space estimate

[Robin Murphy]

On 2022-03-04 09:41, Joerg Roedel wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 04, 2022 at 07:36:46AM +0800, Miles Chen wrote:
>> Hi Robin,
>>
>>> For various reasons based on the allocator behaviour and typical
>>> use-cases at the time, when the max32_alloc_size optimisation was
>>> introduced it seemed reasonable to couple the reset of the tracked
>>> size to the update of cached32_node upon freeing a relevant IOVA.
>>> However, since subsequent optimisations focused on helping genuine
>>> 32-bit devices make best use of even more limited address spaces, it
>>> is now a lot more likely for cached32_node to be anywhere in a "full"
>>> 32-bit address space, and as such more likely for space to become
>>> available from IOVAs below that node being freed.
>>>
>>> At this point, the short-cut in __cached_rbnode_delete_update() really
>>> doesn't hold up any more, and we need to fix the logic to reliably
>>> provide the expected behaviour. We still want cached32_node to only move
>>> upwards, but we should reset the allocation size if *any* 32-bit space
>>> has become available.
>>>
>>> Reported-by: Yunfei Wang <yf.wang@mediatek.com>
>>> Signed-off-by: Robin Murphy <robin.murphy@arm.com>
>>
>> Would you mind adding:
>>
>> Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org>
> 
> Applied without stable tag for now. If needed, please consider
> re-sending it for stable when this patch is merged upstream.

Yeah, having figured out the history, I ended up with the opinion that 
it was a missed corner-case optimisation opportunity, rather than an 
actual error with respect to intent or implementation, so I 
intentionally left that out. Plus figuring out an exact Fixes tag might 
be tricky - as above I reckon it probably only started to become 
significant somwehere around 5.11 or so.

All of these various levels of retry mechanisms are only a best-effort 
thing, and ultimately if you're making large allocations from a small 
space there are always going to be *some* circumstances that still 
manage to defeat them. Over time, we've made them try harder, but that 
fact that we haven't yet made them try hard enough to work well for a 
particular use-case does not constitute a bug. However as Joerg says, 
anyone's welcome to make a case to Greg to backport a mainline commit if 
it's a low-risk change with significant benefit to real-world stable 
kernel users.

Thanks all!

Robin.

Re: [PATCH] iommu/iova: Improve 32-bit free space estimate

[Miles Chen]

Hi Joerg, Robin,

> Applied without stable tag for now. If needed, please consider
> re-sending it for stable when this patch is merged upstream.

> Yeah, having figured out the history, I ended up with the opinion that 
> it was a missed corner-case optimisation opportunity, rather than an 
> actual error with respect to intent or implementation, so I 
> intentionally left that out. Plus figuring out an exact Fixes tag might 
> be tricky - as above I reckon it probably only started to become 
> significant somwehere around 5.11 or so.
> 
> All of these various levels of retry mechanisms are only a best-effort 
> thing, and ultimately if you're making large allocations from a small 
> space there are always going to be *some* circumstances that still 
> manage to defeat them. Over time, we've made them try harder, but that 
> fact that we haven't yet made them try hard enough to work well for a 
> particular use-case does not constitute a bug. However as Joerg says, 
> anyone's welcome to make a case to Greg to backport a mainline commit if 
> it's a low-risk change with significant benefit to real-world stable 
> kernel users.

Got it, thank you. 
We will try to push to the android LTS trees we need.

Thanks,
Miles

> 
> Thanks all!
> 
> Robin.