On Tue, 25 Sep 2012 17:13:27 +0900 Minchan Kim <minchan@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > I see. To me, your saying is better than current comment. > I hope comment could be more explicit. > > diff --git a/mm/compaction.c b/mm/compaction.c > index df01b4e..f1d2cc7 100644 > --- a/mm/compaction.c > +++ b/mm/compaction.c > @@ -542,8 +542,9 @@ isolate_migratepages_range(struct zone *zone, struct compact_control *cc, > * splitting and collapsing (collapsing has already happened > * if PageLRU is set) but the lock is not necessarily taken > * here and it is wasteful to take it just to check transhuge. > - * Check transhuge without lock and skip if it's either a > - * transhuge or hugetlbfs page. > + * Check transhuge without lock and *skip* if it's either a > + * transhuge or hugetlbfs page because it's not safe to call > + * compound_order. > */ > if (PageTransHuge(page)) { > if (!locked) Going a bit further: --- a/mm/compaction.c~mm-compaction-acquire-the-zone-lru_lock-as-late-as-possible-fix +++ a/mm/compaction.c @@ -415,7 +415,8 @@ isolate_migratepages_range(struct zone * * if PageLRU is set) but the lock is not necessarily taken * here and it is wasteful to take it just to check transhuge. * Check transhuge without lock and skip if it's either a - * transhuge or hugetlbfs page. + * transhuge or hugetlbfs page because calling compound_order() + * requires lru_lock to exclude isolation and splitting. */ if (PageTransHuge(page)) { if (!locked) _ but... the requirement to hold lru_lock for compound_order() is news to me. It doesn't seem to be written down or explained anywhere, and one wonders why the cheerily undocumented compound_lock() doesn't have this effect. What's going on here?? -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kvm" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html