Messages in this thread |  | | Subject | Re: [RFC PATCH] mm: mempolicy: remove MPOL_MF_LAZY | From | Yang Shi <> | Date | Thu, 21 Mar 2019 16:25:24 -0700 |
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On 3/21/19 12:45 PM, Michal Hocko wrote: > On Thu 21-03-19 10:25:08, Yang Shi wrote: >> >> On 3/21/19 9:51 AM, Michal Hocko wrote: >>> On Thu 21-03-19 09:21:39, Yang Shi wrote: >>>> On 3/21/19 7:57 AM, Michal Hocko wrote: >>>>> On Wed 20-03-19 08:27:39, Yang Shi wrote: >>>>>> MPOL_MF_LAZY was added by commit b24f53a0bea3 ("mm: mempolicy: Add >>>>>> MPOL_MF_LAZY"), then it was disabled by commit a720094ded8c ("mm: >>>>>> mempolicy: Hide MPOL_NOOP and MPOL_MF_LAZY from userspace for now") >>>>>> right away in 2012. So, it is never ever exported to userspace. >>>>>> >>>>>> And, it looks nobody is interested in revisiting it since it was >>>>>> disabled 7 years ago. So, it sounds pointless to still keep it around. >>>>> The above changelog owes us a lot of explanation about why this is >>>>> safe and backward compatible. I am also not sure you can change >>>>> MPOL_MF_INTERNAL because somebody still might use the flag from >>>>> userspace and we want to guarantee it will have the exact same semantic. >>>> Since MPOL_MF_LAZY is never exported to userspace (Mel helped to confirm >>>> this in the other thread), so I'm supposed it should be safe and backward >>>> compatible to userspace. >>> You didn't get my point. The flag is exported to the userspace and >>> nothing in the syscall entry path checks and masks it. So we really have >>> to preserve the semantic of the flag bit for ever. >> Thanks, I see you point. Yes, it is exported to userspace in some sense >> since it is in uapi header. But, it is never documented and MPOL_MF_VALID >> excludes it. mbind() does check and mask it. It would return -EINVAL if >> MPOL_MF_LAZY or any other undefined/invalid flag is set. See the below code >> snippet from do_mbind(): >> >> ... >> #define MPOL_MF_VALID (MPOL_MF_STRICT | \ >> MPOL_MF_MOVE | \ >> MPOL_MF_MOVE_ALL) >> >> if (flags & ~(unsigned long)MPOL_MF_VALID) >> return -EINVAL; >> >> So, I don't think any application would really use the flag for mbind() >> unless it is aimed to test the -EINVAL. If just test program, it should be >> not considered as a regression. > I have overlook that MPOL_MF_VALID doesn't include MPOL_MF_LAZY. Anyway, > my argument still holds that the bit has to be reserved for ever because > it used to be valid at some point of time and not returning EINVAL could > imply you are running on the kernel which supports the flag.
I'd say it is not valid since very beginning. MPOL_MF_LAZY was added by commit b24f53a0bea3 ("mm: mempolicy: Add MPOL_MF_LAZY"), then it was hidden by commit a720094ded8c ("mm: mempolicy: Hide MPOL_NOOP and MPOL_MF_LAZY from userspace for now"). And, git describe --contains shows:
US-143344MP:linux yang.s$ git describe --contains b24f53a0bea3 v3.8-rc1~92^2~27 US-143344MP:linux yang.s$ git describe --contains a720094ded8c v3.8-rc1~92^2~25
This is why I thought it is never ever exported to userspace.
> >>>> I'm also not sure if anyone use MPOL_MF_INTERNAL or not and how they use it >>>> in their applications, but how about keeping it unchanged? >>> You really have to. Because it is an offset of other MPLO flags for >>> internal usage. >>> >>> That being said. Considering that we really have to preserve >>> MPOL_MF_LAZY value (we cannot even rename it because it is in uapi >>> headers and we do not want to break compilation). What is the point of >>> this change? Why is it an improvement? Yes, nobody is probably using >>> this because this is not respected in anything but the preferred mem >>> policy. At least that is the case from my quick glance. I might be still >>> wrong as it is quite easy to overlook all the consequences. So the risk >>> is non trivial while the benefit is not really clear to me. If you see >>> one, _document_ it. "Mel said it is not in use" is not a justification, >>> with all due respect. >> As I elaborated above, mbind() syscall does check it and treat it as an >> invalid flag. MPOL_PREFERRED doesn't use it either, but just use MPOL_F_MOF >> directly. > As Mel already pointed out. This doesn't really sound like a sound > argument. Say we would remove those few lines of code and preserve the > flag for future reservation of the flag bit. I would bet my head that it > will not be long before somebody just goes and clean it up and remove > because the flag is unused. So you would have to put a note explaining > why this has to be preserved. Maybe the current code is better to > document that. It would be much more sound to remove the code if it was > causing a measurable overhead or a maintenance burden. Is any of that > the case?
As what I found out, I just thought it may be dead code, if so why not remove it otherwise we may have to keep maintaining the unused code.
Thanks, Yang
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