Re: [Xen-devel] freeing unused memory

[Igor Mammedov <imammedo@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 06/29/2011 11:53 AM, Igor Mammedov wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have a question about how upstream patches:
>
> 093d7b4639951 xen: release unused free memory
> f89e048e76da7 xen: make sure pages are really part of domain before 
> freeing
> are supposed to work. Was it intended for freeing unused memory if we 
> boot
> kernel with mem=XX option and domU is configured with more memory than 
> XX?
In regard to RHBZ#523130, I made additional debugging after applying
above mentioned patches. Result: unsed memory is not freed if we pass
mex=XXXM option to pv guest kernel.

Here is call order:
============
setup_arch ->
 ->  setup_memory_map
   ->  x86_init.resources.memory_setup == xen_memory_setup
           before xen_return_unused_memory call we have e820 map like this
           that contains all memory provide by xen:
             BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
               Xen: 0000000000000000 - 00000000000a0000 (usable)
               Xen: 00000000000a0000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
               Xen: 0000000000100000 - 0000000200000000 (usable
*      ->  xen_return_unused_memory

** ->  parse_early_param
=============

*
code fragment:
@xen_return_unused_memory
        for (i = 0; i<  e820->nr_map&&  last_end<  max_addr; i++) {
                phys_addr_t end = e820->map[i].addr;
                end = min(max_addr, end);

                released += xen_release_chunk(last_end, end);
                last_end = e820->map[i].addr + e820->map[i].size;
        }
in best case is nop since xen_release_chunk will not do anything if end<=
last_end and with our example map pairs (last_end, end) will look like:
  last_end   end
  0x0        0x0
  0xa0000    0xa0000
  0x100000   0x100000
i.e. last_end == end =>  xen_release_chunk is nop
in worst case xen_release_chunk may try to release not existed gap if e820 is
sparse.

last fragment of xen_return_unused_memory
        if (last_end<  max_addr)
                released += xen_release_chunk(last_end, max_addr);

has sense only if
   last_end(e820 val)<  max_addr (max hv provided addr)
and that could be only if "mem=" parameter was applied to e820 map.
However ** parse_early_param is called after x86_init.resources.memory_setup in
setup_memory_map. So patches:
093d7b4639951 xen: release unused free memory
f89e048e76da7 xen: make sure pages are really part of domain before freeing
are effectively nop code now.

Problem exist not only in rhel6 code but fc15 as well and I guess upstream
is affected to.


--
Thanks,
 Igor


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