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

[Stefan Karlsson]

(Updated Stuart's mail address)

On 2020-08-28 12:42, Stefan Karlsson wrote:
> 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
>>