[ZGC] [aarch64] Unable to allocate heap for certain Linux kernel configurations

[Stefan Karlsson]

On 2020-08-28 11:38, Christoph Göttschkes wrote:
> Hi Stefan, thanks for your feedback. Looks like this case isn't as 
> exotic as I first thought. May I ask which kind of machine this is? Also 
> a small embedded board?

It was one of our compiler devs that ran into this. I don't think it was 
a small machine, but rather that was configured differently then other 
AArch64 machines that we've run on.

> 
> On 2020-08-28 11:04, Stefan Karlsson wrote:
>> I think we hit a very similar problem during some internal testing on 
>> one machine. I have a patch to workaround that problem:
>>
>> https://cr.openjdk.java.net/~stefank/prototype/zaarch-va/webrev.01/
> 
> Your patch works with some modifications. In my case, only 39 bits are 
> available in the virtual address space. I put that value as "va_bits" 
> and it works.

OK. Good to know.

> 
>> Unfortunately, this patch only solves the problem on a very specific 
>> setup, and I don't think it covers your use-case. Hopefully, someone 
>> with enough AArch64 machine config knowledge would be able to extend 
>> this patch to also cover all possible combinations.
> 
> I don't think the possible combinations are the problem. [1] shows them 
> (sorry, didn't put that link in the last mail) for Linux. I think the 
> real problem is detecting this and making the addressing scheme adjust 
> itself.
> 
> Maybe there could be a mechanism which tries to allocate memory beyond 
> certain addresses to try and detect the number of bits available? On my 
> machine, for instance, the ZGC implementation tries to allocate memory 
> with different starting addresses, but always gets an address back which 
> is way smaller (because of the kernel limitations). Maybe, the ZGC 
> implementation could store this information (the number of bits in 
> addresses returned by mmap) and use this information to try and make 
> another loop, which tries to allocate the heap with a reduced number of 
> bits used for the addresses. This could also be a HotSpot option, to 
> speed things up during startup if one knows that the machine uses a 
> "weird" configuration.
> 
>> I think creating a bug report would be a good start. Do you have an 
>> openjdk user name? If not I can create a bug report.
> 
> Yes, I can create bug reports. I used my first mail and created one [2].

Thanks! We have had some brief discussions with Stuart (CC:ed), who 
created the AArch64 port, about this problem. Maybe he has had some time 
to think about it, and have some additional insights or ideas.

Thanks,
StefanK

> 
> -- Christoph
> 
> [1] 
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/arm64/memory.txt__;!!GqivPVa7Brio!LfyuMvR1e95FLlQs-8R-nh4-o89GIOgBFv1QU5_Y8OwPMh7ckvRjmrgp0vjyD0UaGUhW$ 
> [2] https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8252500
>