On 1/7/19 5:43 AM, Catalin Marinas wrote: > On Thu, Jan 03, 2019 at 06:07:35PM +0100, Michal Hocko wrote: >>>> On Wed 02-01-19 13:06:19, Qian Cai wrote: >>>> [...] >>>>> diff --git a/mm/kmemleak.c b/mm/kmemleak.c >>>>> index f9d9dc250428..9e1aa3b7df75 100644 >>>>> --- a/mm/kmemleak.c >>>>> +++ b/mm/kmemleak.c >>>>> @@ -576,6 +576,16 @@ static struct kmemleak_object *create_object(unsigned long ptr, size_t size, >>>>> struct rb_node **link, *rb_parent; >>>>> >>>>> object = kmem_cache_alloc(object_cache, gfp_kmemleak_mask(gfp)); >>>>> +#ifdef CONFIG_PREEMPT_COUNT >>>>> + if (!object) { >>>>> + /* last-ditch effort in a low-memory situation */ >>>>> + if (irqs_disabled() || is_idle_task(current) || in_atomic()) >>>>> + gfp = GFP_ATOMIC; >>>>> + else >>>>> + gfp = gfp_kmemleak_mask(gfp) | __GFP_DIRECT_RECLAIM; >>>>> + object = kmem_cache_alloc(object_cache, gfp); >>>>> + } >>>>> +#endif > [...] >> I will not object to this workaround but I strongly believe that >> kmemleak should rethink the metadata allocation strategy to be really >> robust. > > This would be nice indeed and it was discussed last year. I just haven't > got around to trying anything yet: > > https://marc.info/?l=linux-mm&m=152812489819532 > It could be helpful to apply this 10-line patch first if has no fundamental issue, as it survives probably 50 times running LTP oom* workloads without a single kmemleak allocation failure. Of course, if someone is going to embed kmemleak metadata into slab objects itself soon, this workaround is not needed.