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authorLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2018-10-31 09:25:15 -0700
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2018-10-31 09:25:15 -0700
commit59fc453b21f767f2fb0ff4dc0a947e9b9c9e6d14 (patch)
tree42029c432982ebabb462bd16a413a033125fd793 /Documentation/admin-guide/mm/memory-hotplug.rst
parent310c7585e8300ddc46211df0757c11e4299ec482 (diff)
parent2ebe82288b3278b8e538ee8adce4142dbdedd8f6 (diff)
Merge branch 'akpm' (patches from Andrew)
Merge more updates from Andrew Morton: - the rest of MM - lib/bitmap updates - hfs updates - fatfs updates - various other misc things * emailed patches from Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>: (94 commits) mm/gup.c: fix __get_user_pages_fast() comment mm: Fix warning in insert_pfn() memory-hotplug.rst: add some details about locking internals powerpc/powernv: hold device_hotplug_lock when calling memtrace_offline_pages() powerpc/powernv: hold device_hotplug_lock when calling device_online() mm/memory_hotplug: fix online/offline_pages called w.o. mem_hotplug_lock mm/memory_hotplug: make add_memory() take the device_hotplug_lock mm/memory_hotplug: make remove_memory() take the device_hotplug_lock mm/memblock.c: warn if zero alignment was requested memblock: stop using implicit alignment to SMP_CACHE_BYTES docs/boot-time-mm: remove bootmem documentation mm: remove include/linux/bootmem.h memblock: replace BOOTMEM_ALLOC_* with MEMBLOCK variants mm: remove nobootmem memblock: rename __free_pages_bootmem to memblock_free_pages memblock: rename free_all_bootmem to memblock_free_all memblock: replace free_bootmem_late with memblock_free_late memblock: replace free_bootmem{_node} with memblock_free mm: nobootmem: remove bootmem allocation APIs memblock: replace alloc_bootmem with memblock_alloc ...
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1 files changed, 41 insertions, 1 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/memory-hotplug.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/memory-hotplug.rst
index 25157aec5b31..5c4432c96c4b 100644
--- a/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/memory-hotplug.rst
+++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/mm/memory-hotplug.rst
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ Memory Hotplug
==============
:Created: Jul 28 2007
-:Updated: Add description of notifier of memory hotplug: Oct 11 2007
+:Updated: Add some details about locking internals: Aug 20 2018
This document is about memory hotplug including how-to-use and current status.
Because Memory Hotplug is still under development, contents of this text will
@@ -392,6 +392,46 @@ Need more implementation yet....
- Notification completion of remove works by OS to firmware.
- Guard from remove if not yet.
+
+Locking Internals
+=================
+
+When adding/removing memory that uses memory block devices (i.e. ordinary RAM),
+the device_hotplug_lock should be held to:
+
+- synchronize against online/offline requests (e.g. via sysfs). This way, memory
+ block devices can only be accessed (.online/.state attributes) by user
+ space once memory has been fully added. And when removing memory, we
+ know nobody is in critical sections.
+- synchronize against CPU hotplug and similar (e.g. relevant for ACPI and PPC)
+
+Especially, there is a possible lock inversion that is avoided using
+device_hotplug_lock when adding memory and user space tries to online that
+memory faster than expected:
+
+- device_online() will first take the device_lock(), followed by
+ mem_hotplug_lock
+- add_memory_resource() will first take the mem_hotplug_lock, followed by
+ the device_lock() (while creating the devices, during bus_add_device()).
+
+As the device is visible to user space before taking the device_lock(), this
+can result in a lock inversion.
+
+onlining/offlining of memory should be done via device_online()/
+device_offline() - to make sure it is properly synchronized to actions
+via sysfs. Holding device_hotplug_lock is advised (to e.g. protect online_type)
+
+When adding/removing/onlining/offlining memory or adding/removing
+heterogeneous/device memory, we should always hold the mem_hotplug_lock in
+write mode to serialise memory hotplug (e.g. access to global/zone
+variables).
+
+In addition, mem_hotplug_lock (in contrast to device_hotplug_lock) in read
+mode allows for a quite efficient get_online_mems/put_online_mems
+implementation, so code accessing memory can protect from that memory
+vanishing.
+
+
Future Work
===========