Config validation was introduced at 3aae792b with main intention to fix
infinite purging loop, but it didn't actually fix the underlying
problem, just masked it. Later 47d69b4ea was merged to address the same
problem.
Options `hpa_dirty_mult` and `hpa_hugification_threshold` have different
application dimensions: `hpa_dirty_mult` applied to active memory on the
shard, but `hpa_hugification_threshold` is a threshold for single
pageslab (hugepage). It doesn't make much sense to sum them up together.
While it is true that too high value of `hpa_dirty_mult` and too low
value of `hpa_hugification_threshold` can lead to pathological
behaviour, it is true for other options as well. Poor configurations
might lead to suboptimal and sometimes completely unacceptable
behaviour and that's OK, that is exactly the reason why they are called
poor.
There are other mechanism exist to prevent extreme behaviour, when we
hugified and then immediately purged page, see
`hpa_hugify_blocked_by_ndirty` function, which exist to prevent exactly
this case.
Lastly, `hpa_dirty_mult + hpa_hugification_threshold >= 1` constraint is
too tight and prevents a lot of valid configurations.
Change in `hpa_min_purge_interval_ms` handling logic is not backward
compatible as it might increase memory usage. Now this logic guarded by
`hpa_strict_min_purge_interval` option.
When `hpa_strict_min_purge_interval` is true, we will purge no more than
`hpa_min_purge_interval_ms`. When `hpa_strict_min_purge_interval` is
false, old purging logic behaviour is preserved.
Long term strategy migrate all users of hpa to new logic and then delete
`hpa_strict_min_purge_interval` option.
As reported in #2449, under certain circumstances it's possible to get
stuck in an infinite loop attempting to purge from the HPA. We now
handle this by validating the HPA settings at the end of
configuration parsing and either normalizing them or aborting depending on
if `abort_conf` is set.
This change allows every allocator conforming to PAI communicate that it
deferred some work for the future. Without it if a background thread goes into
indefinite sleep, there is no way to notify it about upcoming deferred work.
Dmitry Ilvokhin