[PATCH] Revert "mm/page_alloc: fix memmap_init_zone pageblock alignment"

[Ard Biesheuvel]

On 15 March 2018 at 02:32, Daniel Vacek <neelx at redhat.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 6:36 PM, Ard Biesheuvel
> <ard.biesheuvel at linaro.org> wrote:
>> On 14 March 2018 at 16:41, Ard Biesheuvel <ard.biesheuvel at linaro.org> wrote:
>>> On 14 March 2018 at 15:54, Ard Biesheuvel <ard.biesheuvel at linaro.org> wrote:
>>>> On 14 March 2018 at 14:54, Michal Hocko <mhocko at kernel.org> wrote:
>>>>> On Wed 14-03-18 14:35:12, Ard Biesheuvel wrote:
>>>>>> On 14 March 2018 at 14:13, Michal Hocko <mhocko at kernel.org> wrote:
>>>>>> > Does http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20180313224240.25295-1-neelx@redhat.com
>>>>>> > fix your issue? From the debugging info you provided it should because
>>>>>> > the patch prevents jumping backwards.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The patch does fix the boot hang.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> But I am concerned that we are papering over a fundamental flaw in
>>>>>> memblock_next_valid_pfn().
>>>>>
>>>>> It seems that memblock_next_valid_pfn is doing the right thing here. It
>>>>> is the alignment which moves the pfn back AFAICS. I am not really
>>>>> impressed about the original patch either, to be completely honest.
>>>>> It just looks awfully tricky. I still didn't manage to wrap my head
>>>>> around the original issue though so I do not have much better ideas to
>>>>> be honest.
>>>>
>>>> So first of all, memblock_next_valid_pfn() never refers to its max_pfn
>>>> argument, which is odd nut easily fixed.
>>>> Then, the whole idea of substracting one so that the pfn++ will
>>>> produce the expected value is rather hacky,
>>>>
>>>> But the real problem is that rounding down pfn for the next iteration
>>>> is dodgy, because early_pfn_valid() isn't guaranteed to return true
>>>> for the rounded down value. I know it is probably fine in reality, but
>>>> dodgy as hell. The same applies to the call to early_pfn_in_nid() btw
>>>>
>>>> So how about something like this (apologies on Gmail's behalf for the
>>>> whitespace damage, I can resend it as a proper patch)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ---------8<-----------
>>>> diff --git a/mm/page_alloc.c b/mm/page_alloc.c
>>>> index 3d974cb2a1a1..b89ca999ee3b 100644
>>>> --- a/mm/page_alloc.c
>>>> +++ b/mm/page_alloc.c
>>>> @@ -5352,28 +5352,29 @@
>>>>                  * function.  They do not exist on hotplugged memory.
>>>>                  */
>>>>                 if (context != MEMMAP_EARLY)
>>>>                         goto not_early;
>>>>
>>>> -               if (!early_pfn_valid(pfn)) {
>>>> +               if (!early_pfn_valid(pfn) || !early_pfn_in_nid(pfn, nid)) {
>>>>  #ifdef CONFIG_HAVE_MEMBLOCK_NODE_MAP
>>>>                         /*
>>>>                          * Skip to the pfn preceding the next valid one (or
>>>>                          * end_pfn), such that we hit a valid pfn (or end_pfn)
>>>>                          * on our next iteration of the loop. Note that it needs
>>>>                          * to be pageblock aligned even when the region itself
>>>>                          * is not. move_freepages_block() can shift ahead of
>>>>                          * the valid region but still depends on correct page
>>>>                          * metadata.
>>>>                          */
>>>> -                       pfn = (memblock_next_valid_pfn(pfn, end_pfn) &
>>>> -                                       ~(pageblock_nr_pages-1)) - 1;
>>>> -#endif
>>>> +                       pfn = memblock_next_valid_pfn(pfn, end_pfn);
>>>> +                       if (pfn >= end_pfn)
>>>> +                               break;
>>>> +                       pfn &= ~(pageblock_nr_pages - 1);
>>>> +#else
>>>>                         continue;
>>>> +#endif
>>>>                 }
>>>> -               if (!early_pfn_in_nid(pfn, nid))
>>>> -                       continue;
>>>>                 if (!update_defer_init(pgdat, pfn, end_pfn, &nr_initialised))
>>>>                         break;
>>>>
>>>>  #ifdef CONFIG_HAVE_MEMBLOCK_NODE_MAP
>>>>                 /*
>>>> ---------8<-----------
>>>>
>>>> This ensures that we enter the remainder of the loop with a properly
>>>> aligned pfn, rather than tweaking the value of pfn so it assumes the
>>>> expected value after 'pfn++'
>>>
>>> Um, this does not actually solve the issue. I guess this is due to the
>>> fact that a single pageblock size chunk could have both valid and
>>> invalid PFNs, and so rounding down the first PFN of the second valid
>>> chunk moves you back to the first chunk.
>>
>> OK, so the original patch attempted to ensure that of each pageblock,
>> at least the first struct page gets initialized, even though the PFN
>> may not be valid. Unfortunately, this code is not complete, given that
>> start_pfn itself may be misaligned, and so the issue it attempts to
>> solve may still occur.
>
> You're wrong here.
>

You only align down after encountering an invalid PFN. If start_pfn
itself is not pageblock aligned, how do you initialize the first
struct page of the pageblock?

>> Then, I think it is absolutely dodgy to settle for only initializing
>> the first struct page, rather than all of them, only because a
>> specific VM_BUG_ON() references the flag field of the first struct
>> page.
>> IMO, we should fix this by initializing all struct page entries for
>> each pageblock sized chunk that has any valid PFNs.
>
> That's precisely what my patch does. At least with
> CONFIG_HAVE_ARCH_PFN_VALID disabled. And it looks only arm implements
> arch pfn_valid() which I was not testing with and I am not sure it's
> correct. Check my other email
>

No, your patch only initializes the first struct page of a pageblock.
If the next one is invalid, we will skip to the next valid one.

You are making the assumption that pfn_valid() will return true for
all pages in a pageblock if it returns true for one of them, and this
does not hold on other architectures.