[dpdk-dev] [PATCH] eal: add option to not store segment fd's

[Thomas Monjalon]

29/03/2019 13:05, Burakov, Anatoly:
> On 29-Mar-19 11:34 AM, Thomas Monjalon wrote:
> > 29/03/2019 11:33, Burakov, Anatoly:
> >> On 29-Mar-19 9:50 AM, David Marchand wrote:
> >>> On Fri, Feb 22, 2019 at 6:12 PM Anatoly Burakov
> >>> <anatoly.burakov at intel.com <mailto:anatoly.burakov at intel.com>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>      Due to internal glibc limitations [1], DPDK may exhaust internal
> >>>      file descriptor limits when using smaller page sizes, which results
> >>>      in inability to use system calls such as select() by user
> >>>      applications.
> >>>
> >>>      While the problem can be worked around using --single-file-segments
> >>>      option, it does not work if --legacy-mem mode is also used. Add a
> >>>      (yet another) EAL flag to disable storing fd's internally. This
> >>>      will sacrifice compability with Virtio with vhost-backend, but
> >>>      at least select() and friends will work.
> >>>
> >>>      [1] https://mails.dpdk.org/archives/dev/2019-February/124386.html
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Sorry, I am a bit lost and I never took the time to look in the new
> >>> memory allocation system.
> >>> This gives the impression that we are accumulating workarounds, between
> >>> legacy-mem, single-file-segments, now no-seg-fds.
> >>
> >> Yep. I don't like this any more than you do, but i think there are users
> >> of all of these, so we can't just drop them willy-nilly. My great hope
> >> was that by now everyone would move on to use VFIO so legacy mem
> >> wouldn't be needed (the only reason it exists is to provide
> >> compatibility for use cases where lots of IOVA-contiguous memory is
> >> required, and VFIO cannot be used), but apparently that is too much to
> >> ask :/
> >>
> >>>
> >>> Iiuc, everything revolves around the need for per page locks.
> >>> Can you summarize why we need them?
> >>
> >> The short answer is multiprocess. We have to be able to map and unmap
> >> pages individually, and for that we need to be sure that we can, in
> >> fact, remove a page because no one else uses it. We also need to store
> >> fd's because virtio with vhost-user backend needs them to work, because
> >> it relies on sharing memory between processes using fd's.
> > 
> > It's a pity adding an option to workaround a limitation of a corner case.
> > It adds complexity that we will have to support forever,
> > and it's even not perfect because of vhost.
> > 
> > Might there be another solution?
> > 
> 
> If there is one, i'm all ears. I don't see any solutions aside from 
> adding limitations.
> 
> For example, we could drop the single/multi file segments mode and just 
> make single file segments a default and the only available mode, but 
> this has certain risks because older kernels do not support fallocate() 
> on hugetlbfs.
> 
> We could further draw a line in the sand, and say that, for example, 
> 19.11 (or 20.11) will not have legacy mem mode, and everyone should use 
> VFIO by now and if you don't it's your own fault.
> 
> We could also cut down on the number of fd's we use in single-file 
> segments mode by not using locks and simply deleting pages in the 
> primary, but yanking out hugepages from under secondaries' feet makes me 
> feel uneasy, even if technically by the time that happens, they're not 
> supposed to be used anyway. This could mean that the patch is no longer 
> necessary because we don't use that many fd's any more.

This last option is interesting. Is it realistic?