Virtualization - Feb 2022 - [PATCH v4 3/7] mm: page_isolation: check specified range for unmovable pages

On 02.02.22 13:18, Oscar Salvador wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 19, 2022 at 02:06:19PM -0500, Zi Yan wrote:
>> From: Zi Yan <ziy at nvidia.com>
>>
>> Enable set_migratetype_isolate() to check specified sub-range for
>> unmovable pages during isolation. Page isolation is done
>> at max(MAX_ORDER_NR_PAEGS, pageblock_nr_pages) granularity, but not all
>> pages within that granularity are intended to be isolated. For example,
>> alloc_contig_range(), which uses page isolation, allows ranges without
>> alignment. This commit makes unmovable page check only look for
>> interesting pages, so that page isolation can succeed for any
>> non-overlapping ranges.
> 
> Another thing that came to my mind.
> Prior to this patch, has_unmovable_pages() was checking on pageblock
> granularity, starting at pfn#0 of the pageblock.
> With this patch, you no longer check on pageblock granularity, which
> means you might isolate a pageblock, but some pages that sneaked in
> might actually be unmovable.
> 
> E.g:
> 
> Let's say you have a pageblock that spans (pfn#512,pfn#1024),
> and you pass alloc_contig_range() (pfn#514,pfn#1024).
> has_unmovable_pages() will start checking the pageblock at pfn#514,
> and so it will mis pfn#512 and pfn#513. Isn't that a problem, if those
> pfn turn out to be actually unmovable?
That's the whole idea for being able to allocate parts of an unmovable
pageblock that are movable.

If the first part is unmovable but the second part is movable, nothing
should stop us from trying to allocate the second part.

Of course, we want to remember the original migratetype of the
pageblock, to restore that after isolation -- otherwise we'll end up
converting all such pageblocks to MIGRATE_MOVABLE. The next patch does
that IIRC.

However, devil is in the detail, and I still have to review those parts
of this series.


Note that there are no current users of alloc_contig_range() that
allocate < MAX_ORDER - 1 -- except CMA, but for CMA we immediately exit
has_unmovable_pages() either way.

-- 
Thanks,

David / dhildenb