linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] SLUB: Do not fallback to mininum order if __GFP

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Date:   Fri, 20 Apr 2018 09:53:53 -0500 (CDT)
From:   Christopher Lameter <cl@...ux.com>
To:     Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>
cc:     Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>,
        Mikulas Patocka <mpatocka@...hat.com>,
        Mike Snitzer <snitzer@...hat.com>,
        Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>,
        Pekka Enberg <penberg@...nel.org>, linux-mm@...ck.org,
        dm-devel@...hat.com, David Rientjes <rientjes@...gle.com>,
        Joonsoo Kim <iamjoonsoo.kim@....com>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] SLUB: Do not fallback to mininum order if __GFP_NORETRY
 is set

On Thu, 19 Apr 2018, Michal Hocko wrote:

> Overriding __GFP_NORETRY is just a bad idea. It will make the semantic
> of the flag just more confusing. Note there are users who use
> __GFP_NORETRY as a way to suppress heavy memory pressure and/or the OOM
> killer. You do not want to change the semantic for them.

Redoing the allocation after failing a large order alloc is a retry. I
would say its confusing right now because a retry occurs despite
specifying GFP_NORETRY,

> Besides that the changelog is less than optimal. What is the actual
> problem? Why somebody doesn't want a fallback? Is there a configuration
> that could prevent the same?

The problem is that SLUB does not honor GFP_NORETRY. The semantics of
GFP_NORETRY are not followed.