[AEP]Sub-section memory hotplug support, fix namepsace padding

Bug #1829689 reported by quanxian
6
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
intel
Fix Released
Undecided
Unassigned
linux (Ubuntu)
Incomplete
Undecided
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Bug Description

The memory hotplug section is an arbitrary / convenient unit for memory
hotplug. 'Section-size' units have bled into the user interface
('memblock' sysfs) and can not be changed without breaking existing
userspace. The section-size constraint, while mostly benign for typical
memory hotplug, has and continues to wreak havoc with 'device-memory'
use cases, persistent memory (pmem) in particular. Recall that pmem uses
devm_memremap_pages(), and subsequently arch_add_memory(), to allocate a
'struct page' memmap for pmem. However, it does not use the 'bottom
half' of memory hotplug, i.e. never marks pmem pages online and never
exposes the userspace memblock interface for pmem. This leaves an
opening to redress the section-size constraint.

To date, the libnvdimm subsystem has attempted to inject padding to
satisfy the internal constraints of arch_add_memory(). Beyond
complicating the code, leading to bugs [2], wasting memory, and limiting
configuration flexibility, the padding hack is broken when the platform
changes this physical memory alignment of pmem from one boot to the
next. Device failure (intermittent or permanent) and physical
reconfiguration are events that can cause the platform firmware to
change the physical placement of pmem on a subsequent boot, and device
failure is an everyday event in a data-center.

It turns out that sections are only a hard requirement of the
user-facing interface for memory hotplug and with a bit more
infrastructure sub-section arch_add_memory() support can be added for
kernel internal usages like devm_memremap_pages(). Here is an analysis
of the current design assumptions in the current code and how they are
addressed in the new implementation:

Current design assumptions:

Sections that describe boot memory (early sections) are never
unplugged / removed.
pfn_valid(), in the CONFIG_SPARSEMEM_VMEMMAP=y, case devolves to a
valid_section() check
__add_pages() and helper routines assume all operations occur in
PAGES_PER_SECTION units.
The memblock sysfs interface only comprehends full sections
New design assumptions:

Sections are instrumented with a sub-section bitmask to track (on x86)
individual 2MB sub-divisions of a 128MB section.
Partially populated early sections can be extended with additional
sub-sections, and those sub-sections can be removed with
arch_remove_memory(). With this in place we no longer lose usable memory
capacity to padding.
pfn_valid() is updated to look deeper than valid_section() to also check the
active-sub-section mask. This indication is in the same cacheline as
the valid_section() so the performance impact is expected to be
negligible. So far the lkp robot has not reported any regressions.
Outside of the core vmemmap population routines which are replaced,
other helper routines like shrink_{zone,pgdat}_span() are updated to
handle the smaller granularity. Core memory hotplug routines that deal
with online memory are not touched.

The existing memblock sysfs user api guarantees / assumptions are
not touched since this capability is limited to !online
!memblock-sysfs-accessible sections.
Meanwhile the issue reports continue to roll in from users that do not
understand when and how the 128MB constraint will bite them. The current
implementation relied on being able to support at least one misaligned
namespace, but that immediately falls over on any moderately complex
namespace creation attempt. Beyond the initial problem of 'System RAM'
colliding with pmem, and the unsolvable problem of physical alignment
changes, Linux is now being exposed to platforms that collide pmem
ranges with other pmem ranges by default [3]. In short,
devm_memremap_pages() has pushed the venerable section-size constraint
past the breaking point, and the simplicity of section-aligned
arch_add_memory() is no longer tenable.

Target Kernel: 5.3
Target Release: 19.10

Revision history for this message
quanxian (quanxian-wang) wrote :

it is the continual bug of LP#1823595 (which is initial fix), more fixes will be in this bug.

Revision history for this message
Ubuntu Kernel Bot (ubuntu-kernel-bot) wrote : Missing required logs.

This bug is missing log files that will aid in diagnosing the problem. While running an Ubuntu kernel (not a mainline or third-party kernel) please enter the following command in a terminal window:

apport-collect 1829689

and then change the status of the bug to 'Confirmed'.

If, due to the nature of the issue you have encountered, you are unable to run this command, please add a comment stating that fact and change the bug status to 'Confirmed'.

This change has been made by an automated script, maintained by the Ubuntu Kernel Team.

Changed in linux (Ubuntu):
status: New → Incomplete
tags: added: eoan
Revision history for this message
quanxian (quanxian-wang) wrote :

326e1b8f83a4 46d945aeab4d 49ba3c6b37b3 7cc7867fb061 7e3e888dfc13 7ea6216049ff 96da43500009 9a845030427c a0653406a3a6 a3619190d62e ba72b4c8cf60 e9c0a3f05477 f1eca35a0dc7 f46edbd1b151

v5.3

Changed in intel:
status: New → Fix Released
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