On Fri 20-02-15 00:29:29, Tetsuo Handa wrote: > Michal Hocko wrote: > > On Thu 19-02-15 13:29:14, Michal Hocko wrote: > > [...] > > > Something like the following. > > __GFP_HIGH doesn't seem to be sufficient so we would need something > > slightly else but the idea is still the same: > > > > diff --git a/mm/page_alloc.c b/mm/page_alloc.c > > index 8d52ab18fe0d..2d224bbdf8e8 100644 > > --- a/mm/page_alloc.c > > +++ b/mm/page_alloc.c > > @@ -2599,6 +2599,7 @@ __alloc_pages_slowpath(gfp_t gfp_mask, unsigned int order, > > enum migrate_mode migration_mode = MIGRATE_ASYNC; > > bool deferred_compaction = false; > > int contended_compaction = COMPACT_CONTENDED_NONE; > > + int oom = 0; > > > > /* > > * In the slowpath, we sanity check order to avoid ever trying to > > @@ -2635,6 +2636,15 @@ retry: > > alloc_flags = gfp_to_alloc_flags(gfp_mask); > > > > /* > > + * __GFP_NOFAIL allocations cannot fail but yet the current context > > + * might be blocking resources needed by the OOM victim to terminate. > > + * Allow the caller to dive into memory reserves to succeed the > > + * allocation and break out from a potential deadlock. > > + */ > > We don't know how many callers will pass __GFP_NOFAIL. But if 1000 > threads are doing the same operation which requires __GFP_NOFAIL > allocation with a lock held, wouldn't memory reserves deplete? We shouldn't have an unbounded number of GFP_NOFAIL allocations at the same time. This would be even more broken. If a load is known to use such allocations excessively then the administrator can enlarge the memory reserves. > This heuristic can't continue if memory reserves depleted or > continuous pages of requested order cannot be found. Once memory reserves are depleted we are screwed anyway and we might panic. -- Michal Hocko SUSE Labs -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-fsdevel" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html