linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH RFC] lib: Make radix_tree_node

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Date:	Thu, 18 Jul 2013 14:37:15 -0700
From:	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
To:	Jan Kara <jack@...e.cz>
Cc:	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>, linux-mm@...ck.org,
	Jens Axboe <jaxboe@...ionio.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH RFC] lib: Make radix_tree_node_alloc() irq safe

On Thu, 18 Jul 2013 15:09:32 +0200 Jan Kara <jack@...e.cz> wrote:

> On Wed 17-07-13 16:12:00, Andrew Morton wrote:
> > On Tue, 16 Jul 2013 19:06:30 +0200 Jan Kara <jack@...e.cz> wrote:
> > 
> > BUG_ON(in_interrupt()) :)
>   Or maybe WARN_ON()... But it's not so easy :) Currently radix tree code
> assumes that if gfp_mask doesn't have __GFP_WAIT set caller has performed
> radix_tree_preload(). Clearly this will stop working for in-interrupt users
> of radix tree. So how do we propagate the information from the caller of
> radix_tree_insert() down to radix_tree_node_alloc() whether the preload has
> been performed or not? Will we rely on in_interrupt() or use some special
> gfp_mask bit?

Well, it won't stop working.  The interrupt-time
radix_tree_node_alloc() call will try to grab a node from the cpu-local
magazine and if that failed, will call kmem_cache_alloc().  Presumably
the caller has passed in GFP_ATOMIC, so the kmem_cache_alloc() will use
page reserves, which seems appropriate.

This will mean that the interrupt-time node allocation will sometimes
steal a preloaded node from process-context code.  In the absolutely
worst case, the process-context code will then need to try
kmem_cache_alloc(), which will probably succeed anyway.

It's not perfect - we'd prefer that process-context node allocations
not get stolen in this fashion.  That's easily fixed with

--- a/lib/radix-tree.c~a
+++ a/lib/radix-tree.c
@@ -207,7 +207,10 @@ radix_tree_node_alloc(struct radix_tree_
 	struct radix_tree_node *ret = NULL;
 	gfp_t gfp_mask = root_gfp_mask(root);
 
-	if (!(gfp_mask & __GFP_WAIT)) {
+	/*
+	 * Lengthy comment goes here
+	 */
+	if (!(gfp_mask & __GFP_WAIT) && !in_interrupt()) {
 		struct radix_tree_preload *rtp;
 
 		/*

But I don't know if it's worth it.

> Secondly, CFQ has this unpleasant property that some functions are
> sometimes called from interrupt context and sometimes not. So these
> functions would have to check in what context they are called and either
> perform preload or not. That's doable but it's going to be a bit ugly and
> has to match the check in radix_tree_node_alloc() whether preload should be
> used or not. So leaving the checking to the users of radix tree looks
> fragile.

mm...  The CFQ code should be passing around a gfp_t anyway - GFP_NOIO
or GFP_ATOMIC, depending on the calling context.  So don't call
radix_tree_preload() if it's GFP_ATOMIC.

> So maybe we could just silently exit from radix_tree_preload()
> when we are in_interrupt()?

Or that.
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