On Wed, May 24, 2017 at 09:58:06AM +0200, Vlastimil Babka wrote:

On 05/24/2017 09:50 AM, Mike Rapoport wrote:

quoted

On Mon, May 22, 2017 at 05:52:47PM +0200, Vlastimil Babka wrote:

quoted

On 05/22/2017 04:29 PM, Mike Rapoport wrote:

quoted

Probably I didn't explained it too well.

The range is intentionally not populated. When we combine pre- and
post-copy for process migration, we create memory pre-dump without stopping
the process, then we freeze the process without dumping the pages it has
dirtied between pre-dump and freeze, and then, during restore, we populate
the dirtied pages using userfaultfd.

When CRIU restores a process in such scenario, it does something like:

* mmap() memory region
* fill in the pages that were collected during the pre-dump
* do some other stuff
* register memory region with userfaultfd
* populate the missing memory on demand

khugepaged collapses the pages in the partially populated regions before we
have a chance to register these regions with userfaultfd, which would
prevent the collapse.

We could have used MADV_NOHUGEPAGE right after the mmap() call, and then
there would be no race because there would be nothing for khugepaged to
collapse at that point. But the problem is that we have no way to reset
*HUGEPAGE flags after the memory restore is complete.

Hmm, I wouldn't be that sure if this is indeed race-free. Check that
this scenario is indeed impossible?

- you do the mmap
- khugepaged will choose the process' mm to scan
- khugepaged will get to the vma in question, it doesn't have
MADV_NOHUGEPAGE yet
- you set MADV_NOHUGEPAGE on the vma
- you start populating the vma
- khugepaged sees the vma is non-empty, collapses

unless I'm wrong, the racers will have mmap_sem for reading only when
setting/checking the MADV_NOHUGEPAGE? Might be actually considered a bug.

However, can't you use prctl(PR_SET_THP_DISABLE) instead? "If arg2 has a
nonzero value, the flag is set, otherwise it is cleared." says the
manpage. Do it before the mmap and you avoid the race as well?

Unfortunately, prctl(PR_SET_THP_DISABLE) didn't help :(
When I've tried to use it, I've ended up with VM_NOHUGEPAGE set on all VMAs
created after prctl(). This returns me to the state when checkpoint-restore
alters the application vma->vm_flags although it shouldn't and I do not see
a way to fix it using existing interfaces.

[CC linux-api, should have been done in the initial posting already]

Sorry, missed that.
 

Hm so the prctl does:

                if (arg2)
                        me->mm->def_flags |= VM_NOHUGEPAGE;
                else
                        me->mm->def_flags &= ~VM_NOHUGEPAGE;

That's rather lazy implementation IMHO. Could we change it so the flag
is stored elsewhere in the mm, and the code that decides to (not) use
THP will check both the per-vma flag and the per-mm flag?

I afraid I don't understand how that can help.
What we need is an ability to temporarily disable collapse of the pages in
VMAs that do not have VM_*HUGEPAGE flags set and that after we re-enable
THP, the vma->vm_flags for those VMAs will remain intact.

--
Sincerely yours,
Mike.

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