On Fri, 13 Jul 2018 09:24:44 -0400 Pavel Tatashin <pasha.tatashin@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On 07/13/2018 09:17 AM, Oscar Salvador wrote: > > On Thu, Jul 12, 2018 at 04:37:26PM -0400, Pavel Tatashin wrote: > >> +static void *sparsemap_buf __meminitdata; > >> +static void *sparsemap_buf_end __meminitdata; > >> + > >> +void __init sparse_buffer_init(unsigned long size, int nid) > >> +{ > >> + BUG_ON(sparsemap_buf); > > > > Why do we need a BUG_ON() here? > > Looking at the code I cannot really see how we can end up with sparsemap_buf being NULL. > > Is it just for over-protection? > > This checks that we do not accidentally leak memory by calling sparse_buffer_init() consequently without sparse_buffer_fini() in-between. A memory leak isn't serious enough to justify crashing the kernel. Therefore --- a/mm/sparse.c~mm-sparse-abstract-sparse-buffer-allocations-fix-fix +++ a/mm/sparse.c @@ -469,7 +469,7 @@ static void *sparsemap_buf_end __meminit void __init sparse_buffer_init(unsigned long size, int nid) { - BUG_ON(sparsemap_buf); + WARN_ON(sparsemap_buf); /* forgot to call sparse_buffer_fini()? */ sparsemap_buf = memblock_virt_alloc_try_nid_raw(size, PAGE_SIZE, __pa(MAX_DMA_ADDRESS), _