linux-kernel - Re: [RFC] propagate gfp_t to page table alloc functions

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Date:	Thu, 26 Apr 2012 09:05:32 +0900
From:	KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@...fujitsu.com>
To:	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
CC:	KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@...fujitsu.com>,
	Nick Piggin <npiggin@...il.com>,
	Minchan Kim <minchan@...nel.org>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>, x86@...nel.org,
	Hugh Dickins <hughd@...gle.com>,
	Johannes Weiner <hannes@...xchg.org>,
	Rik van Riel <riel@...hat.com>, Mel Gorman <mgorman@...e.de>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-mm@...ck.org
Subject: Re: [RFC] propagate gfp_t to page table alloc functions

(2012/04/25 9:25), Andrew Morton wrote:

> On Wed, 25 Apr 2012 09:05:12 +0900
> KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@...fujitsu.com> wrote:
> 
>> (2012/04/25 8:55), KOSAKI Motohiro wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 7:49 PM, KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki
>>> <kamezawa.hiroyu@...fujitsu.com> wrote:
>>>> (2012/04/25 6:30), Andrew Morton wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, 24 Apr 2012 17:48:29 +1000
>>>>> Nick Piggin <npiggin@...il.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hmm, there are several places to use GFP_NOIO and GFP_NOFS even, GFP_ATOMIC.
>>>>>>> I believe it's not trivial now.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> They're all buggy then. Unfortunately not through any real fault of their own.
>>>>>
>>>>> There are gruesome problems in block/blk-throttle.c (thread "mempool,
>>>>> percpu, blkcg: fix percpu stat allocation and remove stats_lock").  It
>>>>> wants to do an alloc_percpu()->vmalloc() from the IO submission path,
>>>>> under GFP_NOIO.
>>>>>
>>>>> Changing vmalloc() to take a gfp_t does make lots of sense, although I
>>>>> worry a bit about making vmalloc() easier to use!
>>>>>
>>>>> I do wonder whether the whole scheme of explicitly passing a gfp_t was
>>>>> a mistake and that the allocation context should be part of the task
>>>>> context.  ie: pass the allocation mode via *current.
>>>>
>>>> yes...that's very interesting.
>>>
>>> I think GFP_ATOMIC is used non task context too. ;-)
>>
>> Hmm, in interrupt context or some ? Can't we detect it ?
> 
> There are lots of practical details and I haven't begun to think it
> through, mainly because it Isn't Going To Happen!
> 
> For example how do we handle spin_lock()?  Does spin_lock() now do
> 
> gfp_t spin_lock_2(spinlock_t *lock)
> {
> 	gfp_t old_gfp = set_current_gfp(GFP_ATOMIC);
> 	spin_lock(lock);
> 	return old_gfp;
> }
> 
> void spin_unlock_2(spinlock_t *lock, gfp_t old_gfp)
> {
> 	spin_unlock(lock);
> 	set_current_gfp(old_gfp);
> }
> 
> Well that's bad.  Currently we require programmers to keep track of
> what context they're running in.  So they think about what they're
> doing.  If we made it this easy, we'd see a big proliferation of
> GFP_ATOMIC allocations, which is bad.
> 
> Requiring the spin_lock() caller to run set_current_gfp() would have
> the same effect.
> 
> 
> 
> Or do we instead do this:
> 
> -	some_function(foo, bar, GFP_NOIO);
> +	old_gfp = set_current_gfp(GFP_NOIO);
> +	some_function(foo, bar);
> +	set_current_gfp(old_gfp);
> 
> So the rule is "if the code was using an explicit GFP_foo then convert
> it to use set_current_gfp().  If the code was receiving a gfp_t
> variable from the caller then delete that arg".
> 
> Or something like that.  It's all too hopelessly impractical to bother
> discussing - 20 years too late!
> 
> 
> otoh, maybe a constrained version of this could be used to address the
> vmalloc() problem alone.
> 


Yes, I think it will be good start.

> 
> otoh2, I didn't *want* blk-throttle.c to use GFP_NOIO for vmalloc(). 
> GFP_NOIO is weak, unreliable and lame.  blk-throttle should find a way
> of using GFP_KERNEL!


I agree.
Thanks,
-Kame

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