[PATCH v6 01/10] mm: add zone device coherent type memory support

[David Hildenbrand]

On 11.02.22 17:15, David Hildenbrand wrote:
> On 01.02.22 16:48, Alex Sierra wrote:
>> Device memory that is cache coherent from device and CPU point of view.
>> This is used on platforms that have an advanced system bus (like CAPI
>> or CXL). Any page of a process can be migrated to such memory. However,
>> no one should be allowed to pin such memory so that it can always be
>> evicted.
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Alex Sierra <alex.sierra at amd.com>
>> Acked-by: Felix Kuehling <Felix.Kuehling at amd.com>
>> Reviewed-by: Alistair Popple <apopple at nvidia.com>
> 
> So, I'm currently messing with PageAnon() pages and CoW semantics ...
> all these PageAnon() ZONE_DEVICE variants don't necessarily make my life
> easier but I'm not sure yet if they make my life harder. I hope you can
> help me understand some of that stuff.
> 
> 1) What are expected CoW semantics for DEVICE_COHERENT?
> 
> I assume we'll share them just like other PageAnon() pages during fork()
> readable, and the first sharer writing to them receives an "ordinary"
> !ZONE_DEVICE copy.
> 
> So this would be just like DEVICE_EXCLUSIVE CoW handling I assume, just
> that we don't have to go through the loop of restoring a device
> exclusive entry?
> 
> 2) How are these pages freed to clear/invalidate PageAnon() ?
> 
> I assume for PageAnon() ZONE_DEVICE pages we'll always for via
> free_devmap_managed_page(), correct?
> 
> 
> 3) FOLL_PIN
> 
> While you write "no one should be allowed to pin such memory", patch #2
> only blocks FOLL_LONGTERM. So I assume we allow ordinary FOLL_PIN and
> you might want to be a bit more precise?
> 
> 
> ... I'm pretty sure we cannot FOLL_PIN DEVICE_PRIVATE pages, but can we
> FILL_PIN DEVICE_EXCLUSIVE pages? I strongly assume so?
> 
> 
> Thanks for any information.
> 

(digging a bit more, I realized that device exclusive pages are not
actually/necessarily ZONE_DEVICE pages -- so I assume DEVICE_COHERENT
will be the actual first PageAnon() ZONE_DEVICE pages that can be
present in a page table.)

-- 
Thanks,

David / dhildenb