On 05/13/2010 11:05 AM, KOSAKI Motohiro wrote:
>>>> void *kvmalloc(size_t size)
>>>> {
>>>> void *ptr;
>>>>
>>>> if (size < PAGE_SIZE)
>>>> return kmalloc(PAGE_SIZE, GFP_KERNEL);
>>>> ptr = alloc_pages_exact(size, GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_NOWARN);
>>>
>>> low order GFP_KERNEL allocation never fail. then, this doesn't works
>>> as you expected.
>>
>> Hi, I suppose you mean the kmalloc allocation -- so kmalloc should fail
>> iff alloc_pages_exact (unless somebody frees a heap of memory indeed)?
>
> I mean, if size of alloc_pages_exact() argument is less than 8 pages,
> alloc_pages_exact() never fail. see __alloc_pages_slowpath().
Sorry, I don't see what's the problem with that. I can see only that
alloc_pages_exact is superfluous there as kmalloc "won't fail" earlier.
>>>> if (ptr != NULL)
>>>> return ptr;
>>>>
>>>> return vmalloc(size);
>>>
>>> On x86, vmalloc area is only 128MB address space. it is very rare
>>> resource than physical ram. vmalloc fallback is not good idea.
>>
>> These functions are a replacement for explicit
>> if (!(x = kmalloc()))
>> x = vmalloc();
>> ...
>> if (is_vmalloc(x))
>> vfree(x);
>> else
>> kfree(x);
>> in the code (like fdtable does this).
>>
>> The 128M limit on x86_32 for vmalloc is configurable so if drivers in
>> sum need more on some specific hardware, it can be increased on the
>> command line (I had to do this on one machine in the past).
>
> Right, but 99% end user don't do this. I don't think this is effective advise.
Indeed. I didn't mean that as the users should change that. They should
only if there is some weird hardware with weird drivers.
>> Anyway as this is a replacement for explicit tests, it shouldn't change
>> the behaviour in any way. Obviously when a user doesn't need virtually
>> contiguous space, he shouldn't use this interface at all.
>
> Why can't we make fdtable virtually contiguous free?
This is possible, but the question is why to make the code more complex?
> Anyway, alloc_fdmem() also don't works as author expected.
Pardon my ignorance, why? (There are more similar users:
init_section_page_cgroup, sys_add_key, ext4_fill_flex_info and many others.)
--
js
suse labs
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