linux-kernel - Re: WARNING in try

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Date:   Mon, 6 Aug 2018 11:31:07 -0400
From:   Johannes Weiner <hannes@...xchg.org>
To:     Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>
Cc:     Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@...gle.com>,
        syzbot <syzbot+bab151e82a4e973fa325@...kaller.appspotmail.com>,
        cgroups@...r.kernel.org, LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Linux-MM <linux-mm@...ck.org>,
        syzkaller-bugs <syzkaller-bugs@...glegroups.com>,
        Vladimir Davydov <vdavydov.dev@...il.com>,
        Dmitry Torokhov <dtor@...gle.com>
Subject: Re: WARNING in try_charge

On Mon, Aug 06, 2018 at 04:21:24PM +0200, Michal Hocko wrote:
> On Mon 06-08-18 13:57:38, Dmitry Vyukov wrote:
> > On Mon, Aug 6, 2018 at 1:02 PM, Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org> wrote:
> > > If you have a strong reason to believe that this is an abuse of WARN I
> > > am all happy to change that. But I haven't heard any yet, to be honest.
> > 
> > WARN must not be used for anything that is not kernel bugs. If this is
> > not kernel bug, WARN must not be used here.
> 
> This is rather strong wording without any backing arguments. I strongly
> doubt 90% of existing WARN* match this expectation. WARN* has
> traditionally been a way to tell that something suspicious is going on.
> Those situation are mostly likely not fatal but it is good to know they
> are happening.

I have to agree with Dmitry here. WARN should indicate a real kernel
issue, not user input that knowingly triggers undesirable behavior in
the kernel. It's our assert() for states we don't think are possible.

I would wager that MOST developers and users understand it that way.