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Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
@@ -0,0 +1,111 @@
From b90e190a95c256d6ef0d7ed5ad42649decfdb6e0 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Jack Thomson <jackabt@amazon.com>
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2026 15:42:36 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] virtio_balloon: Support wait on ACK for hinting

This RFC patch adds a new virtio feature for the virtio-balloon driver
during free page hinting, which will wait on device ack before
committing the range to the free_page_list. The reason for the change is
it allows the device to modify this range without it being reclaimed
from the free_page_list before the ack is sent. As expected, testing
shows this adds overhead to the hinting run duration, increasing it by
~30% with our Firecracker setup. Currently free page hinting is used
mainly for live migration, but this would open it up for a new use-case.

We would like to leverage this with MADV_DONTNEED to reduce RSS of a
guest. We'd like to use hinting because of the flexibility of control it
brings compared to reporting, allowing memory to be reclaimed in
deterministic periods. The traditional balloon device was tested to be
much slower when compared to hinting for these workloads. Currently,
without this synchronization, hinted pages may be reclaimed from the
free list before the device finishes processing them, making hinting
unsuitable for this use-case.

Signed-off-by: Jack Thomson <jackabt@amazon.com>
---
drivers/virtio/virtio_balloon.c | 19 ++++++++++++++++---
include/uapi/linux/virtio_balloon.h | 1 +
2 files changed, 17 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/drivers/virtio/virtio_balloon.c b/drivers/virtio/virtio_balloon.c
index fba0d8c5dcdf..d9fffefa4a05 100644
--- a/drivers/virtio/virtio_balloon.c
+++ b/drivers/virtio/virtio_balloon.c
@@ -575,7 +575,8 @@ static int init_vqs(struct virtio_balloon *vb)

if (virtio_has_feature(vb->vdev, VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_FREE_PAGE_HINT)) {
names[VIRTIO_BALLOON_VQ_FREE_PAGE] = "free_page_vq";
- callbacks[VIRTIO_BALLOON_VQ_FREE_PAGE] = NULL;
+ if (virtio_has_feature(vb->vdev, VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_HINT_WAIT_ON_ACK))
+ callbacks[VIRTIO_BALLOON_VQ_FREE_PAGE] = balloon_ack;
}

if (virtio_has_feature(vb->vdev, VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_REPORTING)) {
@@ -648,8 +649,11 @@ static int send_cmd_id_start(struct virtio_balloon *vb)
virtio_balloon_cmd_id_received(vb));
sg_init_one(&sg, &vb->cmd_id_active, sizeof(vb->cmd_id_active));
err = virtqueue_add_outbuf(vq, &sg, 1, &vb->cmd_id_active, GFP_KERNEL);
- if (!err)
+ if (!err) {
virtqueue_kick(vq);
+ if (virtio_has_feature(vb->vdev, VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_HINT_WAIT_ON_ACK))
+ wait_event(vb->acked, virtqueue_get_buf(vq, &unused));
+ }
return err;
}

@@ -665,8 +669,11 @@ static int send_cmd_id_stop(struct virtio_balloon *vb)

sg_init_one(&sg, &vb->cmd_id_stop, sizeof(vb->cmd_id_stop));
err = virtqueue_add_outbuf(vq, &sg, 1, &vb->cmd_id_stop, GFP_KERNEL);
- if (!err)
+ if (!err) {
virtqueue_kick(vq);
+ if (virtio_has_feature(vb->vdev, VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_HINT_WAIT_ON_ACK))
+ wait_event(vb->acked, virtqueue_get_buf(vq, &unused));
+ }
return err;
}

@@ -702,6 +709,8 @@ static int get_free_page_and_send(struct virtio_balloon *vb)
return err;
}
virtqueue_kick(vq);
+ if (virtio_has_feature(vb->vdev, VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_HINT_WAIT_ON_ACK))
+ wait_event(vb->acked, virtqueue_get_buf(vq, &unused));
spin_lock_irq(&vb->free_page_list_lock);
balloon_page_push(&vb->free_page_list, page);
vb->num_free_page_blocks++;
@@ -1152,6 +1161,9 @@ static int virtballoon_validate(struct virtio_device *vdev)
else if (!virtio_has_feature(vdev, VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_PAGE_POISON))
__virtio_clear_bit(vdev, VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_REPORTING);

+ if (!virtio_has_feature(vdev, VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_FREE_PAGE_HINT))
+ __virtio_clear_bit(vdev, VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_HINT_WAIT_ON_ACK);
+
__virtio_clear_bit(vdev, VIRTIO_F_ACCESS_PLATFORM);
return 0;
}
@@ -1163,6 +1175,7 @@ static unsigned int features[] = {
VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_FREE_PAGE_HINT,
VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_PAGE_POISON,
VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_REPORTING,
+ VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_HINT_WAIT_ON_ACK,
};

static struct virtio_driver virtio_balloon_driver = {
diff --git a/include/uapi/linux/virtio_balloon.h b/include/uapi/linux/virtio_balloon.h
index ddaa45e723c4..1705d9191f7e 100644
--- a/include/uapi/linux/virtio_balloon.h
+++ b/include/uapi/linux/virtio_balloon.h
@@ -37,6 +37,7 @@
#define VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_FREE_PAGE_HINT 3 /* VQ to report free pages */
#define VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_PAGE_POISON 4 /* Guest is using page poisoning */
#define VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_REPORTING 5 /* Page reporting virtqueue */
+#define VIRTIO_BALLOON_F_HINT_WAIT_ON_ACK 6 /* Page hinting waits on device ack */

/* Size of a PFN in the balloon interface. */
#define VIRTIO_BALLOON_PFN_SHIFT 12
--
2.51.0

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