Re: [PATCH v2 1/4] mm/memremap_pages: Introduce memremap_compat_align()

Dan Williams [off-list ref] writes:

On Thu, Feb 13, 2020 at 8:58 AM Jeff Moyer [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

Dan Williams [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

The "sub-section memory hotplug" facility allows memremap_pages() users
like libnvdimm to compensate for hardware platforms like x86 that have a
section size larger than their hardware memory mapping granularity.  The
compensation that sub-section support affords is being tolerant of
physical memory resources shifting by units smaller (64MiB on x86) than
the memory-hotplug section size (128 MiB). Where the platform
physical-memory mapping granularity is limited by the number and
capability of address-decode-registers in the memory controller.

While the sub-section support allows memremap_pages() to operate on
sub-section (2MiB) granularity, the Power architecture may still
require 16MiB alignment on "!radix_enabled()" platforms.

In order for libnvdimm to be able to detect and manage this per-arch
limitation, introduce memremap_compat_align() as a common minimum
alignment across all driver-facing memory-mapping interfaces, and let
Power override it to 16MiB in the "!radix_enabled()" case.

The assumption / requirement for 16MiB to be a viable
memremap_compat_align() value is that Power does not have platforms
where its equivalent of address-decode-registers never hardware remaps a
persistent memory resource on smaller than 16MiB boundaries. Note that I
tried my best to not add a new Kconfig symbol, but header include
entanglements defeated the #ifndef memremap_compat_align design pattern
and the need to export it defeats the __weak design pattern for arch
overrides.

Based on an initial patch by Aneesh.

I have just a couple of questions.

First, can you please add a comment above the generic implementation of
memremap_compat_align describing its purpose, and why a platform might
want to override it?

Sure, how about:

/*
 * The memremap() and memremap_pages() interfaces are alternately used
 * to map persistent memory namespaces. These interfaces place different
 * constraints on the alignment and size of the mapping (namespace).
 * memremap() can map individual PAGE_SIZE pages. memremap_pages() can
 * only map subsections (2MB), and at least one architecture (PowerPC)
 * the minimum mapping granularity of memremap_pages() is 16MB.
 *
 * The role of memremap_compat_align() is to communicate the minimum
 * arch supported alignment of a namespace such that it can freely
 * switch modes without violating the arch constraint. Namely, do not
 * allow a namespace to be PAGE_SIZE aligned since that namespace may be
 * reconfigured into a mode that requires SUBSECTION_SIZE alignment.
 */

quoted

Second, I will take it at face value that the power architecture
requires a 16MB alignment, but it's not clear to me why mmu_linear_psize
was chosen to represent that.  What's the relationship, there, and can
we please have a comment explaining it?

Aneesh, can you help here?

With hash translation, we map the direct-map range with just one page
size. Based on different restrictions as described in htab_init_page_sizes
we can end up choosing 16M, 64K or even 4K. We use the variable
mmu_linear_psize to indicate which page size we used for direct-map
range. 

ie we should do. 

 +unsigned long arch_namespace_align_size(void)
 +{
 +	unsigned long sub_section_size = (1UL << SUBSECTION_SHIFT);
 +
 +	if (radix_enabled())
 +		return sub_section_size;
 +	return max(sub_section_size, (1UL << mmu_psize_defs[mmu_linear_psize].shift));
 +
 +}
 +EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(arch_namespace_align_size);

as done here

https://lore.kernel.org/linux-nvdimm/20200120140749.69549-4-aneesh.kumar@linux.ibm.com/ (local)

Dan can you update the powerpc definition?

-aneesh