Re: [PATCH 2/5] mm/page_alloc: Add a bulk page allocator

On Wed, 10 Mar 2021 10:46:15 +0000 Mel Gorman [off-list ref] wrote:

This patch adds a new page allocator interface via alloc_pages_bulk,
and __alloc_pages_bulk_nodemask. A caller requests a number of pages
to be allocated and added to a list. They can be freed in bulk using
free_pages_bulk().

Why am I surprised we don't already have this.

The API is not guaranteed to return the requested number of pages and
may fail if the preferred allocation zone has limited free memory, the
cpuset changes during the allocation or page debugging decides to fail
an allocation. It's up to the caller to request more pages in batch
if necessary.

Note that this implementation is not very efficient and could be improved
but it would require refactoring. The intent is to make it available early
to determine what semantics are required by different callers. Once the
full semantics are nailed down, it can be refactored.

...

+/* Drop reference counts and free order-0 pages from a list. */
+void free_pages_bulk(struct list_head *list)
+{
+	struct page *page, *next;
+
+	list_for_each_entry_safe(page, next, list, lru) {
+		trace_mm_page_free_batched(page);
+		if (put_page_testzero(page)) {
+			list_del(&page->lru);
+			__free_pages_ok(page, 0, FPI_NONE);
+		}
+	}
+}
+EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(free_pages_bulk);

I expect that batching games are planned in here as well?

Documentation is rather lame.  Returns number of pages allocated...

+int __alloc_pages_bulk_nodemask(gfp_t gfp_mask, int preferred_nid,
+			nodemask_t *nodemask, int nr_pages,
+			struct list_head *alloc_list)
+{
+	struct page *page;
+	unsigned long flags;
+	struct zone *zone;
+	struct zoneref *z;
+	struct per_cpu_pages *pcp;
+	struct list_head *pcp_list;
+	struct alloc_context ac;
+	gfp_t alloc_mask;
+	unsigned int alloc_flags;
+	int alloced = 0;
+
+	if (nr_pages == 1)
+		goto failed;
+
+	/* May set ALLOC_NOFRAGMENT, fragmentation will return 1 page. */
+	if (!prepare_alloc_pages(gfp_mask, 0, preferred_nid, nodemask, &ac, &alloc_mask, &alloc_flags))
+		return 0;
+	gfp_mask = alloc_mask;
+
+	/* Find an allowed local zone that meets the high watermark. */
+	for_each_zone_zonelist_nodemask(zone, z, ac.zonelist, ac.highest_zoneidx, ac.nodemask) {
+		unsigned long mark;
+
+		if (cpusets_enabled() && (alloc_flags & ALLOC_CPUSET) &&
+		    !__cpuset_zone_allowed(zone, gfp_mask)) {
+			continue;
+		}
+
+		if (nr_online_nodes > 1 && zone != ac.preferred_zoneref->zone &&
+		    zone_to_nid(zone) != zone_to_nid(ac.preferred_zoneref->zone)) {
+			goto failed;
+		}
+
+		mark = wmark_pages(zone, alloc_flags & ALLOC_WMARK_MASK) + nr_pages;
+		if (zone_watermark_fast(zone, 0,  mark,
+				zonelist_zone_idx(ac.preferred_zoneref),
+				alloc_flags, gfp_mask)) {
+			break;
+		}
+	}

I suspect the above was stolen from elsewhere and that some code
commonification is planned.

+	if (!zone)
+		return 0;
+
+	/* Attempt the batch allocation */
+	local_irq_save(flags);
+	pcp = &this_cpu_ptr(zone->pageset)->pcp;
+	pcp_list = &pcp->lists[ac.migratetype];
+
+	while (alloced < nr_pages) {
+		page = __rmqueue_pcplist(zone, ac.migratetype, alloc_flags,
+								pcp, pcp_list);
+		if (!page)
+			break;
+
+		prep_new_page(page, 0, gfp_mask, 0);

I wonder if it would be worth running prep_new_page() in a second pass,
after reenabling interrupts.

Speaking of which, will the realtime people get upset about the
irqs-off latency?  How many pages are we talking about here?

+		list_add(&page->lru, alloc_list);
+		alloced++;
+	}
+
+	if (!alloced)
+		goto failed_irq;
+
+	if (alloced) {
+		__count_zid_vm_events(PGALLOC, zone_idx(zone), alloced);
+		zone_statistics(zone, zone);
+	}
+
+	local_irq_restore(flags);
+
+	return alloced;
+
+failed_irq:
+	local_irq_restore(flags);
+
+failed:

Might we need some counter to show how often this path happens?

+	page = __alloc_pages_nodemask(gfp_mask, 0, preferred_nid, nodemask);
+	if (page) {
+		alloced++;
+		list_add(&page->lru, alloc_list);
+	}
+
+	return alloced;
+}
+EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(__alloc_pages_bulk_nodemask);
+