On Tue, Sep 29, 2020 at 10:19:38AM +0200, Michal Hocko wrote: > On Wed 16-09-20 23:43:02, Daniel Vetter wrote: > > I can > > then figure out whether it's better to risk not spotting issues with > > call_rcu vs slapping a memalloc_noio_save/restore around all these > > critical section which force-degrades any allocation to GFP_ATOMIC at > > did you mean memalloc_noreclaim_* here? Yeah I picked the wrong one of that family of functions. > > most, but has the risk that we run into code that assumes "GFP_KERNEL > > never fails for small stuff" and has a decidedly less tested fallback > > path than rcu code. > > Even if the above then please note that memalloc_noreclaim_* or > PF_MEMALLOC should be used with an extreme care. Essentially only for > internal memory reclaimers. It grants access to _all_ the available > memory so any abuse can be detrimental to the overall system operation. > Allocation failure in this mode means that we are out of memory and any > code relying on such an allocation has to carefuly consider failure. > This is not a random allocation mode. Agreed, that's why I don't like having these kind of automagic critical sections. It's a bit a shotgun approach. Paul said that the code would handle failures, but the problem is that it applies everywhere. Anyway my understanding is that call_rcu will be reworked and gain a pile of tricks so that these problems for the callchains leading to call_rcu all disappear. -Daniel -- Daniel Vetter Software Engineer, Intel Corporation http://blog.ffwll.ch
