[PATCH v5 3/3] mm/page_alloc: Keep memoryless cpuless node 0 offline

From: Srikar Dronamraju
Date: Wed Jun 24 2020 - 05:29:47 EST


Currently Linux kernel with CONFIG_NUMA on a system with multiple
possible nodes, marks node 0 as online at boot. However in practice,
there are systems which have node 0 as memoryless and cpuless.

This can cause numa_balancing to be enabled on systems with only one node
with memory and CPUs. The existence of this dummy node which is cpuless and
memoryless node can confuse users/scripts looking at output of lscpu /
numactl.

By marking, N_ONLINE as NODE_MASK_NONE, lets stop assuming that Node 0 is
always online.

v5.8-rc2
available: 2 nodes (0,2)
node 0 cpus:
node 0 size: 0 MB
node 0 free: 0 MB
node 2 cpus: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
node 2 size: 32625 MB
node 2 free: 31490 MB
node distances:
node 0 2
0: 10 20
2: 20 10

proc and sys files
------------------
/sys/devices/system/node/online: 0,2
/proc/sys/kernel/numa_balancing: 1
/sys/devices/system/node/has_cpu: 2
/sys/devices/system/node/has_memory: 2
/sys/devices/system/node/has_normal_memory: 2
/sys/devices/system/node/possible: 0-31

v5.8-rc2 + patch
------------------
available: 1 nodes (2)
node 2 cpus: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
node 2 size: 32625 MB
node 2 free: 31487 MB
node distances:
node 2
2: 10

proc and sys files
------------------
/sys/devices/system/node/online: 2
/proc/sys/kernel/numa_balancing: 0
/sys/devices/system/node/has_cpu: 2
/sys/devices/system/node/has_memory: 2
/sys/devices/system/node/has_normal_memory: 2
/sys/devices/system/node/possible: 0-31

Note: On Powerpc, cpu_to_node of possible but not present cpus would
previously return 0. Hence this commit depends on commit ("powerpc/numa: Set
numa_node for all possible cpus") and commit ("powerpc/numa: Prefer node id
queried from vphn"). Without the 2 commits, Powerpc system might crash.

1. User space applications like Numactl, lscpu, that parse the sysfs tend to
believe there is an extra online node. This tends to confuse users and
applications. Other user space applications start believing that system was
not able to use all the resources (i.e missing resources) or the system was
not setup correctly.

2. Also existence of dummy node also leads to inconsistent information. The
number of online nodes is inconsistent with the information in the
device-tree and resource-dump

3. When the dummy node is present, single node non-Numa systems end up showing
up as NUMA systems and numa_balancing gets enabled. This will mean we take
the hit from the unnecessary numa hinting faults.

Cc: linuxppc-dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: linux-mm@xxxxxxxxx
Cc: linux-kernel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxxx>
Cc: Mel Gorman <mgorman@xxxxxxx>
Cc: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@xxxxxxx>
Cc: "Kirill A. Shutemov" <kirill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Christopher Lameter <cl@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Michael Ellerman <mpe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Gautham R Shenoy <ego@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Satheesh Rajendran <sathnaga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: David Hildenbrand <david@xxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Srikar Dronamraju <srikar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
Changelog v4:->v5:
- rebased to v5.8-rc2
link v4: http://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20200512132937.19295-1-srikar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/t/#u

Changelog v1:->v2:
- Rebased to v5.7-rc3
Link v2: https://lore.kernel.org/linuxppc-dev/20200428093836.27190-1-srikar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/t/#u

mm/page_alloc.c | 4 +++-
1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/mm/page_alloc.c b/mm/page_alloc.c
index 48eb0f1410d4..5187664558e1 100644
--- a/mm/page_alloc.c
+++ b/mm/page_alloc.c
@@ -117,8 +117,10 @@ EXPORT_SYMBOL(latent_entropy);
*/
nodemask_t node_states[NR_NODE_STATES] __read_mostly = {
[N_POSSIBLE] = NODE_MASK_ALL,
+#ifdef CONFIG_NUMA
+ [N_ONLINE] = NODE_MASK_NONE,
+#else
[N_ONLINE] = { { [0] = 1UL } },
-#ifndef CONFIG_NUMA
[N_NORMAL_MEMORY] = { { [0] = 1UL } },
#ifdef CONFIG_HIGHMEM
[N_HIGH_MEMORY] = { { [0] = 1UL } },
--
2.18.1