[PATCH v2 4/5] mm: FLEXIBLE_THP for improved performance

[David Hildenbrand]

On 07.07.23 17:13, Ryan Roberts wrote:
> On 07/07/2023 15:07, David Hildenbrand wrote:
>> On 07.07.23 15:57, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
>>> On Fri, Jul 07, 2023 at 01:29:02PM +0200, David Hildenbrand wrote:
>>>> On 07.07.23 11:52, Ryan Roberts wrote:
>>>>> On 07/07/2023 09:01, Huang, Ying wrote:
>>>>>> Although we can use smaller page order for FLEXIBLE_THP, it's hard to
>>>>>> avoid internal fragmentation completely.  So, I think that finally we
>>>>>> will need to provide a mechanism for the users to opt out, e.g.,
>>>>>> something like "always madvise never" via
>>>>>> /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled.  I'm not sure whether it's
>>>>>> a good idea to reuse the existing interface of THP.
>>>>>
>>>>> I wouldn't want to tie this to the existing interface, simply because that
>>>>> implies that we would want to follow the "always" and "madvise" advice too;
>>>>> That
>>>>> means that on a thp=madvise system (which is certainly the case for android and
>>>>> other client systems) we would have to disable large anon folios for VMAs that
>>>>> haven't explicitly opted in. That breaks the intention that this should be an
>>>>> invisible performance boost. I think it's important to set the policy for
>>>>> use of
>>>>
>>>> It will never ever be a completely invisible performance boost, just like
>>>> ordinary THP.
>>>>
>>>> Using the exact same existing toggle is the right thing to do. If someone
>>>> specify "never" or "madvise", then do exactly that.
>>>>
>>>> It might make sense to have more modes or additional toggles, but
>>>> "madvise=never" means no memory waste.
>>>
>>> I hate the existing mechanisms.  They are an abdication of our
>>> responsibility, and an attempt to blame the user (be it the sysadmin
>>> or the programmer) of our code for using it wrongly.  We should not
>>> replicate this mistake.
>>
>> I don't agree regarding the programmer responsibility. In some cases the
>> programmer really doesn't want to get more memory populated than requested --
>> and knows exactly why setting MADV_NOHUGEPAGE is the right thing to do.
>>
>> Regarding the madvise=never/madvise/always (sys admin decision), memory waste
>> (and nailing down bugs or working around them in customer setups) have been very
>> good reasons to let the admin have a word.
>>
>>>
>>> Our code should be auto-tuning.  I posted a long, detailed outline here:
>>> https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/Y%2FU8bQd15aUO97vS@casper.infradead.org/
>>>
>>
>> Well, "auto-tuning" also should be perfect for everybody, but once reality
>> strikes you know it isn't.
>>
>> If people don't feel like using THP, let them have a word. The "madvise" config
>> option is probably more controversial. But the "always vs. never" absolutely
>> makes sense to me.
>>
>>>> I remember I raised it already in the past, but you *absolutely* have to
>>>> respect the MADV_NOHUGEPAGE flag. There is user space out there (for
>>>> example, userfaultfd) that doesn't want the kernel to populate any
>>>> additional page tables. So if you have to respect that already, then also
>>>> respect MADV_HUGEPAGE, simple.
>>>
>>> Possibly having uffd enabled on a VMA should disable using large folios,
>>
>> There are cases where we enable uffd *after* already touching memory (postcopy
>> live migration in QEMU being the famous example). That doesn't fly.
>>
>>> I can get behind that.  But the notion that userspace knows what it's
>>> doing ... hahaha.  Just ignore the madvise flags.  Userspace doesn't
>>> know what it's doing.
>>
>> If user space sets MADV_NOHUGEPAGE, it exactly knows what it is doing ... in
>> some cases. And these include cases I care about messing with sparse VM memory :)
>>
>> I have strong opinions against populating more than required when user space set
>> MADV_NOHUGEPAGE.
> 
> I can see your point about honouring MADV_NOHUGEPAGE, so think that it is
> reasonable to fallback to allocating an order-0 page in a VMA that has it set.
> The app has gone out of its way to explicitly set it, after all.
> 
> I think the correct behaviour for the global thp controls (cmdline and sysfs)
> are less obvious though. I could get on board with disabling large anon folios
> globally when thp="never". But for other situations, I would prefer to keep
> large anon folios enabled (treat "madvise" as "always"), with the argument that
> their order is much smaller than traditional THP and therefore the internal
> fragmentation is significantly reduced. I really don't want to end up with user
> space ever having to opt-in (with MADV_HUGEPAGE) to see the benefits of large
> anon folios.

I was briefly playing with a nasty idea of an additional "madvise-pmd" 
option (that could be the new default), that would use PMD THP only in 
madvise'd regions, and ordinary everywhere else. But let's disregard 
that for now. I think there is a bigger issue (below).

> 
> I still feel that it would be better for the thp and large anon folio controls
> to be independent though - what's the argument for tying them together?

Thinking about desired 2 MiB flexible THP on aarch64 (64k kernel) vs, 2 
MiB PMD THP on aarch64 (4k kernel), how are they any different? Just the 
way they are mapped ...

It's easy to say "64k vs. 2 MiB" is a difference and we want separate 
controls, but how is "2MiB vs. 2 MiB" different?

Having that said, I think we have to make up our mind how much control 
we want to give user space. Again, the "2MiB vs. 2 MiB" case nicely 
shows that it's not trivial: memory waste is a real issue on some 
systems where we limit THP to madvise().


Just throwing it out for discussing:

What about keeping the "all / madvise / never" semantics (and 
MADV_NOHUGEPAGE ...) but having an additional config knob that specifies 
in which cases we *still* allow flexible THP even though the system was 
configured for "madvise".

I can't come up with a good name for that, but something like 
"max_auto_size=64k" could be something reasonable to set. We could have 
an arch+hw specific default.

(we all hate config options, I know, but I think there are good reasons 
to have such bare-minimum ones)

-- 
Cheers,

David / dhildenb