linux-kernel - Re: bootmem allocator

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Date:	Tue, 8 Apr 2008 10:04:46 +0200
From:	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>
To:	Andi Kleen <andi@...stfloor.org>
Cc:	Cyrill Gorcunov <gorcunov@...il.com>,
	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Yinghai Lu <yhlu.kernel@...il.com>
Subject: Re: bootmem allocator


* Andi Kleen <andi@...stfloor.org> wrote:

> > hm, bootmem allocator is supposed to clear memory. We have a couple 
> > of places that rely on that.
> 
> I was actually considering to change that for the GB pages hugetlbfs 
> patchkit, because memset for 1G is a little slow and not needed (will 
> be cleared later anyways) and it might be a problem for very large 
> systems with a lot of such pages at boot.

changing the default behavior of bootmem alloc to be non-clearing is a 
really bad idea that will only cause unrobustness. The proper approach 
is to add an _opt-in_ API that does not clear memory 
(bootmem_alloc_dontclear() or whatever), available to callers that know 
it for sure that they dont need the clearing.

	Ingo
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