linux-kernel - Re: [patch -mm 8/9 v2] oom: avoid oom killer for lowmem allocations

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Date:	Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:10:15 -0800 (PST)
From:	David Rientjes <rientjes@...gle.com>
To:	KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@...fujitsu.com>
cc:	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Rik van Riel <riel@...hat.com>,
	Nick Piggin <npiggin@...e.de>,
	Andrea Arcangeli <aarcange@...hat.com>,
	Balbir Singh <balbir@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
	Lubos Lunak <l.lunak@...e.cz>,
	KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@...fujitsu.com>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-mm@...ck.org
Subject: Re: [patch -mm 8/9 v2] oom: avoid oom killer for lowmem
 allocations

On Tue, 16 Feb 2010, KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki wrote:

> > If memory has been depleted in lowmem zones even with the protection
> > afforded to it by /proc/sys/vm/lowmem_reserve_ratio, it is unlikely that
> > killing current users will help.  The memory is either reclaimable (or
> > migratable) already, in which case we should not invoke the oom killer at
> > all, or it is pinned by an application for I/O.  Killing such an
> > application may leave the hardware in an unspecified state and there is
> > no guarantee that it will be able to make a timely exit.
> > 
> > Lowmem allocations are now failed in oom conditions so that the task can
> > perhaps recover or try again later.  Killing current is an unnecessary
> > result for simply making a GFP_DMA or GFP_DMA32 page allocation and no
> > lowmem allocations use the now-deprecated __GFP_NOFAIL bit so retrying is
> > unnecessary.
> > 
> > Previously, the heuristic provided some protection for those tasks with 
> > CAP_SYS_RAWIO, but this is no longer necessary since we will not be
> > killing tasks for the purposes of ISA allocations.
> > 
> > high_zoneidx is gfp_zone(gfp_flags), meaning that ZONE_NORMAL will be the
> > default for all allocations that are not __GFP_DMA, __GFP_DMA32,
> > __GFP_HIGHMEM, and __GFP_MOVABLE on kernels configured to support those
> > flags.  Testing for high_zoneidx being less than ZONE_NORMAL will only
> > return true for allocations that have either __GFP_DMA or __GFP_DMA32.
> > 
> > Acked-by: Rik van Riel <riel@...hat.com>
> > Reviewed-by: KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@...fujitsu.com>
> > Signed-off-by: David Rientjes <rientjes@...gle.com>
> > ---
> >  mm/page_alloc.c |    3 +++
> >  1 files changed, 3 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
> > 
> > diff --git a/mm/page_alloc.c b/mm/page_alloc.c
> > --- a/mm/page_alloc.c
> > +++ b/mm/page_alloc.c
> > @@ -1914,6 +1914,9 @@ rebalance:
> >  	 * running out of options and have to consider going OOM
> >  	 */
> >  	if (!did_some_progress) {
> > +		/* The oom killer won't necessarily free lowmem */
> > +		if (high_zoneidx < ZONE_NORMAL)
> > +			goto nopage;
> >  		if ((gfp_mask & __GFP_FS) && !(gfp_mask & __GFP_NORETRY)) {
> >  			if (oom_killer_disabled)
> >  				goto nopage;
> 
> WARN_ON((high_zoneidx < ZONE_NORMAL) && (gfp_mask & __GFP_NOFAIL))
> plz.
> 

As I already explained when you first brought this up, the possibility of 
not invoking the oom killer is not unique to GFP_DMA, it is also possible 
for GFP_NOFS.  Since __GFP_NOFAIL is deprecated and there are no current 
users of GFP_DMA | __GFP_NOFAIL, that warning is completely unnecessary.  
We're not adding any additional __GFP_NOFAIL allocations.
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