[RFC PATCH 0/3] Introduce new huge_ptep_get_access_flags() interface

[Baolin Wang]

On 5/9/2022 1:08 AM, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> On Sun, May 08, 2022 at 04:58:51PM +0800, Baolin Wang wrote:
>> As Mike pointed out [1], the huge_ptep_get() will only return one specific
>> pte value for the CONT-PTE or CONT-PMD size hugetlb on ARM64 system, which
>> will not take into account the subpages' dirty or young bits of a CONT-PTE/PMD
>> size hugetlb page. That will make us miss dirty or young flags of a CONT-PTE/PMD
>> size hugetlb page for those functions that want to check the dirty or
>> young flags of a hugetlb page. For example, the gather_hugetlb_stats() will
>> get inaccurate dirty hugetlb page statistics, and the DAMON for hugetlb monitoring
>> will also get inaccurate access statistics.
>>
>> To fix this issue, one approach is that we can define an ARM64 specific huge_ptep_get()
>> implementation, which will take into account any subpages' dirty or young bits.
>> However we should add a new parameter for ARM64 specific huge_ptep_get() to check
>> how many continuous PTEs or PMDs in this CONT-PTE/PMD size hugetlb, that means we
>> should convert all the places using huge_ptep_get(), meanwhile most places using
>> huge_ptep_get() did not care about the dirty or young flags at all.
>>
>> So instead of changing the prototype of huge_ptep_get(), this patch set introduces
>> a new huge_ptep_get_access_flags() interface and define an ARM64 specific implementation,
>> that will take into account any subpages' dirty or young bits for CONT-PTE/PMD size
>> hugetlb page. And we can only change to use huge_ptep_get_access_flags() for those
>> functions that care about the dirty or young flags of a hugetlb page.
> 
> I question whether this is the right approach.  I understand that
> different hardware implementations have different requirements here,
> but at least one that I'm aware of (AMD Zen 2/3) requires that all
> PTEs that are part of a contig PTE must have identical A/D bits.  Now,
> you could say that's irrelevant because it's x86 and we don't currently
> support contPTE on x86, but I wouldn't be surprised to see that other
> hardware has the same requirement.

Yes, so on x86, we can use the default huge_ptep_get(). But for ARM64, 
unfortunately the A/D bits of a contig PTE is independent, that's why we 
want a ARM64 specific huge_ptep_get().

> So what if we make that a Linux requirement?  Setting a contPTE dirty or
> accessed becomes a bit more expensive (although still one/two cachelines,
> so not really much more expensive than a single write).  Then there's no
> need to change the "get" side of things because they're always identical.
> 
> It does mean that we can't take advantage of hardware setting A/D bits,
> unless hardware can be persuaded to behave this way.  I don't have any
> ARM specs in front of me to check.

I hope the hardware can make sure the contPTE are always identical, 
however in fact like I said the A/D bits setting of a contig PTE by 
hardware is independent in a contig-PTE size hugetlb page, they are not 
always identical.

 From my testing, if I monitored a contig-PTE size hugetlb page with 
DAMON, and I only modified the subpages of the contig-PTE size hugetlb 
page. The result is I can not monitor any accesses, but actually there are.

So I think an ARM64 specific huge_ptep_get() implementation seems the 
right way as Muchun suggested?

Thanks.