Re: [PATCH 4/6] mm cma: rename PF_MEMALLOC_NOCMA to PF_MEMALLOC_NOMOVABLE

[Pavel Tatashin]

On Thu, Dec 3, 2020 at 3:57 AM Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Wed 02-12-20 00:23:28, Pavel Tatashin wrote:
> > PF_MEMALLOC_NOCMA is used for longterm pinning and has an effect of
> > clearing _GFP_MOVABLE or prohibiting allocations from ZONE_MOVABLE.
>
> This is not precise. You are mixing the implementation and the intention
> here. I would say "PF_MEMALLOC_NOCMA is used ot guarantee that the
> allocator will not return pages that might belong to CMA region. This is
> currently used for long term gup to make sure that such pins are not
> going to be done on any CMA pages."
>
> > We will prohibit allocating any pages that are getting
> > longterm pinned from ZONE_MOVABLE, and we would want to unify and re-use
> > this flag. So, rename it to generic PF_MEMALLOC_NOMOVABLE.
> > Also re-name:
> > memalloc_nocma_save()/memalloc_nocma_restore
> > to
> > memalloc_nomovable_save()/memalloc_nomovable_restore()
> > and make the new functions common.
>
> This is hard to parse for me. I would go with something like:
> "
> When PF_MEMALLOC_NOCMA has been introduced we haven't realized that it
> is focusing on CMA pages too much and that there is larger class of
> pages that need the same treatment. MOVABLE zone cannot contain
> any long term pins as well so it makes sense to reuse and redefine this
> flag for that usecase as well. Rename the flag to PF_MEMALLOC_NOMOVABLE
> which defines an allocation context which can only get pages suitable
> for long-term pins.
> "

I will address the above with your suggested wording.

>
> Btw. the naming is hard but PF_MEMALLOC_NOMOVABLE is a bit misnomer. CMA
> pages are not implicitly movable. So in fact we do care more about
> pinning than movability. PF_MEMALLOC_PIN or something similar would be
> better fit for the overal intention.

Sounds good, I will rename with PF_MEMALLOC_PIN

>
> Other than that looks good to me. Thanks!

Thank you,
Pasha