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Message-ID: <CAG_fn=W9Y7=RZREi5S8z-sAMg2GfPsWqrHo+UawXWiRbhrNd0Q@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 21 May 2019 16:18:37 +0200
From: Alexander Potapenko <glider@...gle.com>
To: Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>, Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>
Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>, Christoph Lameter <cl@...ux.com>,
Kernel Hardening <kernel-hardening@...ts.openwall.com>,
Masahiro Yamada <yamada.masahiro@...ionext.com>, James Morris <jmorris@...ei.org>,
"Serge E. Hallyn" <serge@...lyn.com>, Nick Desaulniers <ndesaulniers@...gle.com>,
Kostya Serebryany <kcc@...gle.com>, Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@...gle.com>, Sandeep Patil <sspatil@...roid.com>,
Laura Abbott <labbott@...hat.com>, Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@...radead.org>, Jann Horn <jannh@...gle.com>,
Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@....com>, Souptick Joarder <jrdr.linux@...il.com>,
Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>, Linux Memory Management List <linux-mm@...ck.org>,
linux-security-module <linux-security-module@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 3/4] gfp: mm: introduce __GFP_NO_AUTOINIT
On Fri, May 17, 2019 at 7:11 PM Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org> wrote:
>
> On Fri 17-05-19 09:27:54, Kees Cook wrote:
> > On Fri, May 17, 2019 at 04:01:08PM +0200, Michal Hocko wrote:
> > > On Fri 17-05-19 15:37:14, Alexander Potapenko wrote:
> > > > > > > Freeing a memory is an opt-in feature and the slab allocator can already
> > > > > > > tell many (with constructor or GFP_ZERO) do not need it.
> > > > > > Sorry, I didn't understand this piece. Could you please elaborate?
> > > > >
> > > > > The allocator can assume that caches with a constructor will initialize
> > > > > the object so additional zeroying is not needed. GFP_ZERO should be self
> > > > > explanatory.
> > > > Ah, I see. We already do that, see the want_init_on_alloc()
> > > > implementation here: https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/10943087/
> > > > > > > So can we go without this gfp thing and see whether somebody actually
> > > > > > > finds a performance problem with the feature enabled and think about
> > > > > > > what can we do about it rather than add this maint. nightmare from the
> > > > > > > very beginning?
> > > > > >
> > > > > > There were two reasons to introduce this flag initially.
> > > > > > The first was double initialization of pages allocated for SLUB.
> > > > >
> > > > > Could you elaborate please?
> > > > When the kernel allocates an object from SLUB, and SLUB happens to be
> > > > short on free pages, it requests some from the page allocator.
> > > > Those pages are initialized by the page allocator
> > >
> > > ... when the feature is enabled ...
> > >
> > > > and split into objects. Finally SLUB initializes one of the available
> > > > objects and returns it back to the kernel.
> > > > Therefore the object is initialized twice for the first time (when it
> > > > comes directly from the page allocator).
> > > > This cost is however amortized by SLUB reusing the object after it's been freed.
> > >
> > > OK, I see what you mean now. Is there any way to special case the page
> > > allocation for this feature? E.g. your implementation tries to make this
> > > zeroying special but why cannot you simply do this
> > >
> > >
> > > struct page *
> > > ____alloc_pages_nodemask(gfp_t gfp_mask, unsigned int order, int preferred_nid,
> > > nodemask_t *nodemask)
> > > {
> > > //current implementation
> > > }
> > >
> > > struct page *
> > > __alloc_pages_nodemask(gfp_t gfp_mask, unsigned int order, int preferred_nid,
> > > nodemask_t *nodemask)
> > > {
> > > if (your_feature_enabled)
> > > gfp_mask |= __GFP_ZERO;
> > > return ____alloc_pages_nodemask(gfp_mask, order, preferred_nid,
> > > nodemask);
> > > }
> > >
> > > and use ____alloc_pages_nodemask from the slab or other internal
> > > allocators?
Given that calling alloc_pages() with __GFP_NO_AUTOINIT doesn't
visibly improve the chosen benchmarks,
and the next patch in the series ("net: apply __GFP_NO_AUTOINIT to
AF_UNIX sk_buff allocations") only improves hackbench,
shall we maybe drop both patches altogether?
> > If an additional allocator function is preferred over a new GFP flag, then
> > I don't see any reason not to do this. (Though adding more "__"s seems
> > a bit unfriendly to code-documentation.) What might be better naming?
>
> The naminig is the last thing I would be worried about. Let's focus on
> the most simplistic implementation first. And means, can we really make
> it as simple as above? At least on the page allocator level.
>
> > This would mean that the skb changes later in the series would use the
> > "no auto init" version of the allocator too, then.
>
> No, this would be an internal function to MM. I would really like to
> optimize once there are numbers from _real_ workloads to base those
> optimizations.
> --
> Michal Hocko
> SUSE Labs
--
Alexander Potapenko
Software Engineer
Google Germany GmbH
Erika-Mann-Straße, 33
80636 München
Geschäftsführer: Paul Manicle, Halimah DeLaine Prado
Registergericht und -nummer: Hamburg, HRB 86891
Sitz der Gesellschaft: Hamburg
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