linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] mm, oom: protect !costly allocations some more

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Date:	Tue, 8 Mar 2016 13:29:50 +0100
From:	Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>
To:	Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>
Cc:	Hugh Dickins <hughd@...gle.com>,
	Sergey Senozhatsky <sergey.senozhatsky.work@...il.com>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Johannes Weiner <hannes@...xchg.org>,
	Mel Gorman <mgorman@...e.de>,
	David Rientjes <rientjes@...gle.com>,
	Tetsuo Handa <penguin-kernel@...ove.sakura.ne.jp>,
	Hillf Danton <hillf.zj@...baba-inc.com>,
	KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@...fujitsu.com>,
	linux-mm@...ck.org, LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Joonsoo Kim <js1304@...il.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] mm, oom: protect !costly allocations some more

On 03/08/2016 01:22 PM, Michal Hocko wrote:
>> Thanks.
>>
>>> A more important question is whether the criteria I have chosen are
>>> reasonable and reasonably independent on the particular implementation
>>> of the compaction. I still cannot convince myself about the convergence
>>> here. Is it possible that the compaction would keep returning 
>>> compact_result <= COMPACT_CONTINUE while not making any progress at all?
>>
>> Theoretically, if reclaim/compaction suitability decisions and
>> allocation attempts didn't match the watermark checks, including the
>> alloc_flags and classzone_idx parameters. Possible scenarios:
>>
>> - reclaim thinks compaction has enough to proceed, but compaction thinks
>> otherwise and returns COMPACT_SKIPPED
>> - compaction thinks it succeeded and returns COMPACT_PARTIAL, but
>> allocation attempt fails
>> - and perhaps some other combinations
> 
> But that might happen right now as well so it wouldn't be a regression,
> right?

Maybe, somehow, I didn't study closely how the retry decisions work.
Your patch adds another way to retry so it's theoretically more
dangerous. Just hinting at what to possibly check (the watermark checks) :)