[PATCH v2 1/8] mm: balloon: update comment about isolation/migration/compaction

David Hildenbrand david at redhat.com
Thu Nov 22 10:06:20 UTC 2018


Commit b1123ea6d3b3 ("mm: balloon: use general non-lru movable page
feature") reworked balloon handling to make use of the general
non-lru movable page feature. The big comment block in
balloon_compaction.h contains quite some outdated information. Let's fix
this.

Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm at linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Matthew Wilcox <willy at infradead.org>
Cc: Michal Hocko <mhocko at suse.com>
Cc: "Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst at redhat.com>
Acked-by: Michael S. Tsirkin <mst at redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: David Hildenbrand <david at redhat.com>
---
 include/linux/balloon_compaction.h | 26 +++++++++-----------------
 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+), 17 deletions(-)

diff --git a/include/linux/balloon_compaction.h b/include/linux/balloon_compaction.h
index 53051f3d8f25..cbe50da5a59d 100644
--- a/include/linux/balloon_compaction.h
+++ b/include/linux/balloon_compaction.h
@@ -4,15 +4,18 @@
  *
  * Common interface definitions for making balloon pages movable by compaction.
  *
- * Despite being perfectly possible to perform ballooned pages migration, they
- * make a special corner case to compaction scans because balloon pages are not
- * enlisted at any LRU list like the other pages we do compact / migrate.
+ * Balloon page migration makes use of the general non-lru movable page
+ * feature.
+ *
+ * page->private is used to reference the responsible balloon device.
+ * page->mapping is used in context of non-lru page migration to reference
+ * the address space operations for page isolation/migration/compaction.
  *
  * As the page isolation scanning step a compaction thread does is a lockless
  * procedure (from a page standpoint), it might bring some racy situations while
  * performing balloon page compaction. In order to sort out these racy scenarios
  * and safely perform balloon's page compaction and migration we must, always,
- * ensure following these three simple rules:
+ * ensure following these simple rules:
  *
  *   i. when updating a balloon's page ->mapping element, strictly do it under
  *      the following lock order, independently of the far superior
@@ -21,19 +24,8 @@
  *	      +--spin_lock_irq(&b_dev_info->pages_lock);
  *	            ... page->mapping updates here ...
  *
- *  ii. before isolating or dequeueing a balloon page from the balloon device
- *      pages list, the page reference counter must be raised by one and the
- *      extra refcount must be dropped when the page is enqueued back into
- *      the balloon device page list, thus a balloon page keeps its reference
- *      counter raised only while it is under our special handling;
- *
- * iii. after the lockless scan step have selected a potential balloon page for
- *      isolation, re-test the PageBalloon mark and the PagePrivate flag
- *      under the proper page lock, to ensure isolating a valid balloon page
- *      (not yet isolated, nor under release procedure)
- *
- *  iv. isolation or dequeueing procedure must clear PagePrivate flag under
- *      page lock together with removing page from balloon device page list.
+ *  ii. isolation or dequeueing procedure must remove the page from balloon
+ *      device page list under b_dev_info->pages_lock.
  *
  * The functions provided by this interface are placed to help on coping with
  * the aforementioned balloon page corner case, as well as to ensure the simple
-- 
2.17.2



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