Hi, __alloc_pages_may_oom just after it manages to get oom_lock we try to allocate once more with ALLOC_WMARK_HIGH target. I was always wondering why are we will to actually kill something even though we are above min wmark. This doesn't make much sense to me. I understand that this is racy because __alloc_pages_may_oom is called after we have failed to fulfill the WMARK_MIN target but this means WMARK_HIGH is highly unlikely as well. So either we should use ALLOC_WMARK_MIN or get rid of this altogether. The code has been added before git era by https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/akpm/patches/2.6/2.6.11-rc2/2.6.11-rc2-mm2/broken-out/mm-fix-several-oom-killer-bugs.patch and it doesn't explain this particular decision. It seems to me that what ever was the reason back then it doesn't hold anymore. What do you think? -- Michal Hocko SUSE Labs -- To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to majordomo@xxxxxxxxx. For more info on Linux MM, see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ . Don't email: <a href=mailto:"dont@xxxxxxxxx";> email@xxxxxxxxx </a>