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authorDaniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>2024-04-07 18:49:45 +0000
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+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+=========================================
+A vmemmap diet for HugeTLB and Device DAX
+=========================================
+
+HugeTLB
+=======
+
+This section is to explain how HugeTLB Vmemmap Optimization (HVO) works.
+
+The ``struct page`` structures are used to describe a physical page frame. By
+default, there is a one-to-one mapping from a page frame to it's corresponding
+``struct page``.
+
+HugeTLB pages consist of multiple base page size pages and is supported by many
+architectures. See Documentation/admin-guide/mm/hugetlbpage.rst for more
+details. On the x86-64 architecture, HugeTLB pages of size 2MB and 1GB are
+currently supported. Since the base page size on x86 is 4KB, a 2MB HugeTLB page
+consists of 512 base pages and a 1GB HugeTLB page consists of 4096 base pages.
+For each base page, there is a corresponding ``struct page``.
+
+Within the HugeTLB subsystem, only the first 4 ``struct page`` are used to
+contain unique information about a HugeTLB page. ``__NR_USED_SUBPAGE`` provides
+this upper limit. The only 'useful' information in the remaining ``struct page``
+is the compound_head field, and this field is the same for all tail pages.
+
+By removing redundant ``struct page`` for HugeTLB pages, memory can be returned
+to the buddy allocator for other uses.
+
+Different architectures support different HugeTLB pages. For example, the
+following table is the HugeTLB page size supported by x86 and arm64
+architectures. Because arm64 supports 4k, 16k, and 64k base pages and
+supports contiguous entries, so it supports many kinds of sizes of HugeTLB
+page.
+
++--------------+-----------+-----------------------------------------------+
+| Architecture | Page Size | HugeTLB Page Size |
++--------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
+| x86-64 | 4KB | 2MB | 1GB | | |
++--------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
+| | 4KB | 64KB | 2MB | 32MB | 1GB |
+| +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
+| arm64 | 16KB | 2MB | 32MB | 1GB | |
+| +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
+| | 64KB | 2MB | 512MB | 16GB | |
++--------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
+
+When the system boot up, every HugeTLB page has more than one ``struct page``
+structs which size is (unit: pages)::
+
+ struct_size = HugeTLB_Size / PAGE_SIZE * sizeof(struct page) / PAGE_SIZE
+
+Where HugeTLB_Size is the size of the HugeTLB page. We know that the size
+of the HugeTLB page is always n times PAGE_SIZE. So we can get the following
+relationship::
+
+ HugeTLB_Size = n * PAGE_SIZE
+
+Then::
+
+ struct_size = n * PAGE_SIZE / PAGE_SIZE * sizeof(struct page) / PAGE_SIZE
+ = n * sizeof(struct page) / PAGE_SIZE
+
+We can use huge mapping at the pud/pmd level for the HugeTLB page.
+
+For the HugeTLB page of the pmd level mapping, then::
+
+ struct_size = n * sizeof(struct page) / PAGE_SIZE
+ = PAGE_SIZE / sizeof(pte_t) * sizeof(struct page) / PAGE_SIZE
+ = sizeof(struct page) / sizeof(pte_t)
+ = 64 / 8
+ = 8 (pages)
+
+Where n is how many pte entries which one page can contains. So the value of
+n is (PAGE_SIZE / sizeof(pte_t)).
+
+This optimization only supports 64-bit system, so the value of sizeof(pte_t)
+is 8. And this optimization also applicable only when the size of ``struct page``
+is a power of two. In most cases, the size of ``struct page`` is 64 bytes (e.g.
+x86-64 and arm64). So if we use pmd level mapping for a HugeTLB page, the
+size of ``struct page`` structs of it is 8 page frames which size depends on the
+size of the base page.
+
+For the HugeTLB page of the pud level mapping, then::
+
+ struct_size = PAGE_SIZE / sizeof(pmd_t) * struct_size(pmd)
+ = PAGE_SIZE / 8 * 8 (pages)
+ = PAGE_SIZE (pages)
+
+Where the struct_size(pmd) is the size of the ``struct page`` structs of a
+HugeTLB page of the pmd level mapping.
+
+E.g.: A 2MB HugeTLB page on x86_64 consists in 8 page frames while 1GB
+HugeTLB page consists in 4096.
+
+Next, we take the pmd level mapping of the HugeTLB page as an example to
+show the internal implementation of this optimization. There are 8 pages
+``struct page`` structs associated with a HugeTLB page which is pmd mapped.
+
+Here is how things look before optimization::
+
+ HugeTLB struct pages(8 pages) page frame(8 pages)
+ +-----------+ ---virt_to_page---> +-----------+ mapping to +-----------+
+ | | | 0 | -------------> | 0 |
+ | | +-----------+ +-----------+
+ | | | 1 | -------------> | 1 |
+ | | +-----------+ +-----------+
+ | | | 2 | -------------> | 2 |
+ | | +-----------+ +-----------+
+ | | | 3 | -------------> | 3 |
+ | | +-----------+ +-----------+
+ | | | 4 | -------------> | 4 |
+ | PMD | +-----------+ +-----------+
+ | level | | 5 | -------------> | 5 |
+ | mapping | +-----------+ +-----------+
+ | | | 6 | -------------> | 6 |
+ | | +-----------+ +-----------+
+ | | | 7 | -------------> | 7 |
+ | | +-----------+ +-----------+
+ | |
+ | |
+ | |
+ +-----------+
+
+The value of page->compound_head is the same for all tail pages. The first
+page of ``struct page`` (page 0) associated with the HugeTLB page contains the 4
+``struct page`` necessary to describe the HugeTLB. The only use of the remaining
+pages of ``struct page`` (page 1 to page 7) is to point to page->compound_head.
+Therefore, we can remap pages 1 to 7 to page 0. Only 1 page of ``struct page``
+will be used for each HugeTLB page. This will allow us to free the remaining
+7 pages to the buddy allocator.
+
+Here is how things look after remapping::
+
+ HugeTLB struct pages(8 pages) page frame(8 pages)
+ +-----------+ ---virt_to_page---> +-----------+ mapping to +-----------+
+ | | | 0 | -------------> | 0 |
+ | | +-----------+ +-----------+
+ | | | 1 | ---------------^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
+ | | +-----------+ | | | | | |
+ | | | 2 | -----------------+ | | | | |
+ | | +-----------+ | | | | |
+ | | | 3 | -------------------+ | | | |
+ | | +-----------+ | | | |
+ | | | 4 | ---------------------+ | | |
+ | PMD | +-----------+ | | |
+ | level | | 5 | -----------------------+ | |
+ | mapping | +-----------+ | |
+ | | | 6 | -------------------------+ |
+ | | +-----------+ |
+ | | | 7 | ---------------------------+
+ | | +-----------+
+ | |
+ | |
+ | |
+ +-----------+
+
+When a HugeTLB is freed to the buddy system, we should allocate 7 pages for
+vmemmap pages and restore the previous mapping relationship.
+
+For the HugeTLB page of the pud level mapping. It is similar to the former.
+We also can use this approach to free (PAGE_SIZE - 1) vmemmap pages.
+
+Apart from the HugeTLB page of the pmd/pud level mapping, some architectures
+(e.g. aarch64) provides a contiguous bit in the translation table entries
+that hints to the MMU to indicate that it is one of a contiguous set of
+entries that can be cached in a single TLB entry.
+
+The contiguous bit is used to increase the mapping size at the pmd and pte
+(last) level. So this type of HugeTLB page can be optimized only when its
+size of the ``struct page`` structs is greater than **1** page.
+
+Notice: The head vmemmap page is not freed to the buddy allocator and all
+tail vmemmap pages are mapped to the head vmemmap page frame. So we can see
+more than one ``struct page`` struct with ``PG_head`` (e.g. 8 per 2 MB HugeTLB
+page) associated with each HugeTLB page. The ``compound_head()`` can handle
+this correctly. There is only **one** head ``struct page``, the tail
+``struct page`` with ``PG_head`` are fake head ``struct page``. We need an
+approach to distinguish between those two different types of ``struct page`` so
+that ``compound_head()`` can return the real head ``struct page`` when the
+parameter is the tail ``struct page`` but with ``PG_head``. The following code
+snippet describes how to distinguish between real and fake head ``struct page``.
+
+.. code-block:: c
+
+ if (test_bit(PG_head, &page->flags)) {
+ unsigned long head = READ_ONCE(page[1].compound_head);
+
+ if (head & 1) {
+ if (head == (unsigned long)page + 1)
+ /* head struct page */
+ else
+ /* tail struct page */
+ } else {
+ /* head struct page */
+ }
+ }
+
+We can safely access the field of the **page[1]** with ``PG_head`` because the
+page is a compound page composed with at least two contiguous pages.
+The implementation refers to ``page_fixed_fake_head()``.
+
+Device DAX
+==========
+
+The device-dax interface uses the same tail deduplication technique explained
+in the previous chapter, except when used with the vmemmap in
+the device (altmap).
+
+The following page sizes are supported in DAX: PAGE_SIZE (4K on x86_64),
+PMD_SIZE (2M on x86_64) and PUD_SIZE (1G on x86_64).
+
+The differences with HugeTLB are relatively minor.
+
+It only use 3 ``struct page`` for storing all information as opposed
+to 4 on HugeTLB pages.
+
+There's no remapping of vmemmap given that device-dax memory is not part of
+System RAM ranges initialized at boot. Thus the tail page deduplication
+happens at a later stage when we populate the sections. HugeTLB reuses the
+the head vmemmap page representing, whereas device-dax reuses the tail
+vmemmap page. This results in only half of the savings compared to HugeTLB.
+
+Deduplicated tail pages are not mapped read-only.
+
+Here's how things look like on device-dax after the sections are populated::
+
+ +-----------+ ---virt_to_page---> +-----------+ mapping to +-----------+
+ | | | 0 | -------------> | 0 |
+ | | +-----------+ +-----------+
+ | | | 1 | -------------> | 1 |
+ | | +-----------+ +-----------+
+ | | | 2 | ----------------^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
+ | | +-----------+ | | | | |
+ | | | 3 | ------------------+ | | | |
+ | | +-----------+ | | | |
+ | | | 4 | --------------------+ | | |
+ | PMD | +-----------+ | | |
+ | level | | 5 | ----------------------+ | |
+ | mapping | +-----------+ | |
+ | | | 6 | ------------------------+ |
+ | | +-----------+ |
+ | | | 7 | --------------------------+
+ | | +-----------+
+ | |
+ | |
+ | |
+ +-----------+