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mm/gup: introduce pin_user_pages*() and FOLL_PIN
Introduce pin_user_pages*() variations of get_user_pages*() calls, and also pin_longterm_pages*() variations. For now, these are placeholder calls, until the various call sites are converted to use the correct get_user_pages*() or pin_user_pages*() API. These variants will eventually all set FOLL_PIN, which is also introduced, and thoroughly documented. pin_user_pages() pin_user_pages_remote() pin_user_pages_fast() All pages that are pinned via the above calls, must be unpinned via put_user_page(). The underlying rules are: * FOLL_PIN is a gup-internal flag, so the call sites should not directly set it. That behavior is enforced with assertions. * Call sites that want to indicate that they are going to do DirectIO ("DIO") or something with similar characteristics, should call a get_user_pages()-like wrapper call that sets FOLL_PIN. These wrappers will: * Start with "pin_user_pages" instead of "get_user_pages". That makes it easy to find and audit the call sites. * Set FOLL_PIN * For pages that are received via FOLL_PIN, those pages must be returned via put_user_page(). Thanks to Jan Kara and Vlastimil Babka for explaining the 4 cases in this documentation. (I've reworded it and expanded upon it.) Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20200107224558.2362728-12-jhubbard@nvidia.com Signed-off-by: John Hubbard <jhubbard@nvidia.com> Reviewed-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz> Reviewed-by: Mike Rapoport <rppt@linux.ibm.com> [Documentation] Reviewed-by: Jérôme Glisse <jglisse@redhat.com> Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net> Cc: Ira Weiny <ira.weiny@intel.com> Cc: Alex Williamson <alex.williamson@redhat.com> Cc: Aneesh Kumar K.V <aneesh.kumar@linux.ibm.com> Cc: Björn Töpel <bjorn.topel@intel.com> Cc: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de> Cc: Daniel Vetter <daniel.vetter@ffwll.ch> Cc: Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@intel.com> Cc: Hans Verkuil <hverkuil-cisco@xs4all.nl> Cc: Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@mellanox.com> Cc: Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@ziepe.ca> Cc: Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk> Cc: Kirill A. Shutemov <kirill@shutemov.name> Cc: Leon Romanovsky <leonro@mellanox.com> Cc: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@kernel.org> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
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.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 | ||
==================================================== | ||
pin_user_pages() and related calls | ||
==================================================== | ||
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.. contents:: :local: | ||
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Overview | ||
======== | ||
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This document describes the following functions:: | ||
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pin_user_pages() | ||
pin_user_pages_fast() | ||
pin_user_pages_remote() | ||
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Basic description of FOLL_PIN | ||
============================= | ||
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FOLL_PIN and FOLL_LONGTERM are flags that can be passed to the get_user_pages*() | ||
("gup") family of functions. FOLL_PIN has significant interactions and | ||
interdependencies with FOLL_LONGTERM, so both are covered here. | ||
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FOLL_PIN is internal to gup, meaning that it should not appear at the gup call | ||
sites. This allows the associated wrapper functions (pin_user_pages*() and | ||
others) to set the correct combination of these flags, and to check for problems | ||
as well. | ||
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FOLL_LONGTERM, on the other hand, *is* allowed to be set at the gup call sites. | ||
This is in order to avoid creating a large number of wrapper functions to cover | ||
all combinations of get*(), pin*(), FOLL_LONGTERM, and more. Also, the | ||
pin_user_pages*() APIs are clearly distinct from the get_user_pages*() APIs, so | ||
that's a natural dividing line, and a good point to make separate wrapper calls. | ||
In other words, use pin_user_pages*() for DMA-pinned pages, and | ||
get_user_pages*() for other cases. There are four cases described later on in | ||
this document, to further clarify that concept. | ||
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FOLL_PIN and FOLL_GET are mutually exclusive for a given gup call. However, | ||
multiple threads and call sites are free to pin the same struct pages, via both | ||
FOLL_PIN and FOLL_GET. It's just the call site that needs to choose one or the | ||
other, not the struct page(s). | ||
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The FOLL_PIN implementation is nearly the same as FOLL_GET, except that FOLL_PIN | ||
uses a different reference counting technique. | ||
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FOLL_PIN is a prerequisite to FOLL_LONGTERM. Another way of saying that is, | ||
FOLL_LONGTERM is a specific case, more restrictive case of FOLL_PIN. | ||
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Which flags are set by each wrapper | ||
=================================== | ||
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For these pin_user_pages*() functions, FOLL_PIN is OR'd in with whatever gup | ||
flags the caller provides. The caller is required to pass in a non-null struct | ||
pages* array, and the function then pin pages by incrementing each by a special | ||
value. For now, that value is +1, just like get_user_pages*().:: | ||
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Function | ||
-------- | ||
pin_user_pages FOLL_PIN is always set internally by this function. | ||
pin_user_pages_fast FOLL_PIN is always set internally by this function. | ||
pin_user_pages_remote FOLL_PIN is always set internally by this function. | ||
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For these get_user_pages*() functions, FOLL_GET might not even be specified. | ||
Behavior is a little more complex than above. If FOLL_GET was *not* specified, | ||
but the caller passed in a non-null struct pages* array, then the function | ||
sets FOLL_GET for you, and proceeds to pin pages by incrementing the refcount | ||
of each page by +1.:: | ||
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Function | ||
-------- | ||
get_user_pages FOLL_GET is sometimes set internally by this function. | ||
get_user_pages_fast FOLL_GET is sometimes set internally by this function. | ||
get_user_pages_remote FOLL_GET is sometimes set internally by this function. | ||
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Tracking dma-pinned pages | ||
========================= | ||
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Some of the key design constraints, and solutions, for tracking dma-pinned | ||
pages: | ||
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* An actual reference count, per struct page, is required. This is because | ||
multiple processes may pin and unpin a page. | ||
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* False positives (reporting that a page is dma-pinned, when in fact it is not) | ||
are acceptable, but false negatives are not. | ||
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* struct page may not be increased in size for this, and all fields are already | ||
used. | ||
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* Given the above, we can overload the page->_refcount field by using, sort of, | ||
the upper bits in that field for a dma-pinned count. "Sort of", means that, | ||
rather than dividing page->_refcount into bit fields, we simple add a medium- | ||
large value (GUP_PIN_COUNTING_BIAS, initially chosen to be 1024: 10 bits) to | ||
page->_refcount. This provides fuzzy behavior: if a page has get_page() called | ||
on it 1024 times, then it will appear to have a single dma-pinned count. | ||
And again, that's acceptable. | ||
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This also leads to limitations: there are only 31-10==21 bits available for a | ||
counter that increments 10 bits at a time. | ||
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TODO: for 1GB and larger huge pages, this is cutting it close. That's because | ||
when pin_user_pages() follows such pages, it increments the head page by "1" | ||
(where "1" used to mean "+1" for get_user_pages(), but now means "+1024" for | ||
pin_user_pages()) for each tail page. So if you have a 1GB huge page: | ||
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* There are 256K (18 bits) worth of 4 KB tail pages. | ||
* There are 21 bits available to count up via GUP_PIN_COUNTING_BIAS (that is, | ||
10 bits at a time) | ||
* There are 21 - 18 == 3 bits available to count. Except that there aren't, | ||
because you need to allow for a few normal get_page() calls on the head page, | ||
as well. Fortunately, the approach of using addition, rather than "hard" | ||
bitfields, within page->_refcount, allows for sharing these bits gracefully. | ||
But we're still looking at about 8 references. | ||
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This, however, is a missing feature more than anything else, because it's easily | ||
solved by addressing an obvious inefficiency in the original get_user_pages() | ||
approach of retrieving pages: stop treating all the pages as if they were | ||
PAGE_SIZE. Retrieve huge pages as huge pages. The callers need to be aware of | ||
this, so some work is required. Once that's in place, this limitation mostly | ||
disappears from view, because there will be ample refcounting range available. | ||
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* Callers must specifically request "dma-pinned tracking of pages". In other | ||
words, just calling get_user_pages() will not suffice; a new set of functions, | ||
pin_user_page() and related, must be used. | ||
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FOLL_PIN, FOLL_GET, FOLL_LONGTERM: when to use which flags | ||
========================================================== | ||
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Thanks to Jan Kara, Vlastimil Babka and several other -mm people, for describing | ||
these categories: | ||
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CASE 1: Direct IO (DIO) | ||
----------------------- | ||
There are GUP references to pages that are serving | ||
as DIO buffers. These buffers are needed for a relatively short time (so they | ||
are not "long term"). No special synchronization with page_mkclean() or | ||
munmap() is provided. Therefore, flags to set at the call site are: :: | ||
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FOLL_PIN | ||
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...but rather than setting FOLL_PIN directly, call sites should use one of | ||
the pin_user_pages*() routines that set FOLL_PIN. | ||
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CASE 2: RDMA | ||
------------ | ||
There are GUP references to pages that are serving as DMA | ||
buffers. These buffers are needed for a long time ("long term"). No special | ||
synchronization with page_mkclean() or munmap() is provided. Therefore, flags | ||
to set at the call site are: :: | ||
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FOLL_PIN | FOLL_LONGTERM | ||
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NOTE: Some pages, such as DAX pages, cannot be pinned with longterm pins. That's | ||
because DAX pages do not have a separate page cache, and so "pinning" implies | ||
locking down file system blocks, which is not (yet) supported in that way. | ||
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CASE 3: Hardware with page faulting support | ||
------------------------------------------- | ||
Here, a well-written driver doesn't normally need to pin pages at all. However, | ||
if the driver does choose to do so, it can register MMU notifiers for the range, | ||
and will be called back upon invalidation. Either way (avoiding page pinning, or | ||
using MMU notifiers to unpin upon request), there is proper synchronization with | ||
both filesystem and mm (page_mkclean(), munmap(), etc). | ||
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Therefore, neither flag needs to be set. | ||
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In this case, ideally, neither get_user_pages() nor pin_user_pages() should be | ||
called. Instead, the software should be written so that it does not pin pages. | ||
This allows mm and filesystems to operate more efficiently and reliably. | ||
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CASE 4: Pinning for struct page manipulation only | ||
------------------------------------------------- | ||
Here, normal GUP calls are sufficient, so neither flag needs to be set. | ||
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page_dma_pinned(): the whole point of pinning | ||
============================================= | ||
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The whole point of marking pages as "DMA-pinned" or "gup-pinned" is to be able | ||
to query, "is this page DMA-pinned?" That allows code such as page_mkclean() | ||
(and file system writeback code in general) to make informed decisions about | ||
what to do when a page cannot be unmapped due to such pins. | ||
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What to do in those cases is the subject of a years-long series of discussions | ||
and debates (see the References at the end of this document). It's a TODO item | ||
here: fill in the details once that's worked out. Meanwhile, it's safe to say | ||
that having this available: :: | ||
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static inline bool page_dma_pinned(struct page *page) | ||
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...is a prerequisite to solving the long-running gup+DMA problem. | ||
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Another way of thinking about FOLL_GET, FOLL_PIN, and FOLL_LONGTERM | ||
=================================================================== | ||
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Another way of thinking about these flags is as a progression of restrictions: | ||
FOLL_GET is for struct page manipulation, without affecting the data that the | ||
struct page refers to. FOLL_PIN is a *replacement* for FOLL_GET, and is for | ||
short term pins on pages whose data *will* get accessed. As such, FOLL_PIN is | ||
a "more severe" form of pinning. And finally, FOLL_LONGTERM is an even more | ||
restrictive case that has FOLL_PIN as a prerequisite: this is for pages that | ||
will be pinned longterm, and whose data will be accessed. | ||
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Unit testing | ||
============ | ||
This file:: | ||
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tools/testing/selftests/vm/gup_benchmark.c | ||
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has the following new calls to exercise the new pin*() wrapper functions: | ||
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* PIN_FAST_BENCHMARK (./gup_benchmark -a) | ||
* PIN_BENCHMARK (./gup_benchmark -b) | ||
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You can monitor how many total dma-pinned pages have been acquired and released | ||
since the system was booted, via two new /proc/vmstat entries: :: | ||
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/proc/vmstat/nr_foll_pin_requested | ||
/proc/vmstat/nr_foll_pin_requested | ||
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Those are both going to show zero, unless CONFIG_DEBUG_VM is set. This is | ||
because there is a noticeable performance drop in put_user_page(), when they | ||
are activated. | ||
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References | ||
========== | ||
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* `Some slow progress on get_user_pages() (Apr 2, 2019) <https://lwn.net/Articles/784574/>`_ | ||
* `DMA and get_user_pages() (LPC: Dec 12, 2018) <https://lwn.net/Articles/774411/>`_ | ||
* `The trouble with get_user_pages() (Apr 30, 2018) <https://lwn.net/Articles/753027/>`_ | ||
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John Hubbard, October, 2019 |
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