On Tue, 22 Sep 2026 08:34:09 +0300 [email protected] wrote: > From: Mika Penttilä <[email protected]> > > Currently, the way device page faulting and migration works > is not optimal, if you want to do both fault handling and > migration at once. > > Being able to migrate not present pages (or pages mapped with incorrect > permissions, eg. COW) to the GPU requires doing either of the > following sequences: > > 1. hmm_range_fault() - fault in non-present pages with correct permissions, > etc. > 2. migrate_vma_*() - migrate the pages > > Or: > > 1. migrate_vma_*() - migrate present pages > 2. If non-present pages detected by migrate_vma_*(): > a) call hmm_range_fault() to fault pages in > b) call migrate_vma_*() again to migrate now present pages > > The problem with the first sequence is that you always have to do two > page walks even when most of the time the pages are present or zero page > mappings so the common case takes a performance hit. > > The second sequence is better for the common case, but far worse if > pages aren't present because now you have to walk the page tables three > times (once to find the page is not present, once so hmm_range_fault() > can find a non-present page to fault in and once again to setup the > migration). It is also tricky to code correctly. One page table walk > could costs over 1000 cpu cycles on X86-64, which is a significant hit. > > We should be able to walk the page table once, faulting > pages in as required and replacing them with migration entries if > requested.
Sounds sensible. > Tested in X86-64 VM with HMM test device, passing the selftests. > For performance, the migrate throughput tests from the selftests > show similar numbers (within error margin) as unmodified kernel. But no performance benefits are demonstrated?
