[RFC PATCH] ARM: mm: disable kmap_high_get() for SMP

[Nicolas Pitre]

On Tue, 19 Mar 2013, Joonsoo Kim wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 07, 2013 at 07:35:51PM +0900, JoonSoo Kim wrote:
> > 2013/3/7 Nicolas Pitre <nicolas.pitre at linaro.org>:
> > > On Thu, 7 Mar 2013, Joonsoo Kim wrote:
> > >
> > >> Hello, Nicolas.
> > >>
> > >> On Tue, Mar 05, 2013 at 05:36:12PM +0800, Nicolas Pitre wrote:
> > >> > On Mon, 4 Mar 2013, Joonsoo Kim wrote:
> > >> >
> > >> > > With SMP and enabling kmap_high_get(), it makes users of kmap_atomic()
> > >> > > sequential ordered, because kmap_high_get() use global kmap_lock().
> > >> > > It is not welcome situation, so turn off this optimization for SMP.
> > >> >
> > >> > I'm not sure I understand the problem.
> > >> >
> > >> > The lock taken by kmap_high_get() is released right away before that
> > >> > function returns and therefore this is not actually serializing
> > >> > anything.
> > >>
> > >> Yes, you understand what I want to say correctly.
> > >> Sorry for bad explanation.
> > >>
> > >> Following is reasons why I send this patch with RFC tag.
> > >>
> > >> If we have more cpus, performance degration is possible although
> > >> it is very short time to holding the lock in kmap_high_get().
> > >>
> > >> And kmap has maximum 512 entries(512 * 4K = 2M) and some mobile devices
> > >> has 2G memory(highmem 1G>), so probability for finding matched entry
> > >> is approximately < 1/512. This probability can be more decreasing
> > >> for device which have more memory. So I think that waste time to find
> > >> matched entry is more than saved time.
> > >>
> > >> Above is my humble opinion, so please let me know what I am missing.
> > >
> > > Please look at the kmap_high_get() code again.  It performs no
> > > searching at all.  What it does is:
> > 
> > If page is not highmem, it may be already filtered in kmap_atomic().
> > So we only consider highmem page.
> > 
> > For highmem page, it perform searching.
> > In kmap_high_get(), page_address() is called.
> > In page_address(), it hash PA and iterate a list for this hashed value.
> > 
> > And another advantage of disabling ARCH_NEEDS_KMAP_HIGH_GET is
> > that kmap(), kunmap() works without irq disabled.
> > 
> > Thanks.
> 
> Hello, Nicolas.
> 
> For just confirm, you don't agree with this, right?

Right, I don't agree.  I don't believe the saving you claim are bigger 
than the advantages from this functionality.



Nicolas