On Tue, May 23 2023 at 17:29, Christoph Hellwig wrote: > On Tue, May 23, 2023 at 04:02:14PM +0200, Thomas Gleixner wrote: >> + if (READ_ONCE(vb->free) < (1UL << order)) >> + continue; >> + >> spin_lock(&vb->lock); >> if (vb->free < (1UL << order)) { >> spin_unlock(&vb->lock); >> @@ -2174,7 +2177,7 @@ static void *vb_alloc(unsigned long size >> >> pages_off = VMAP_BBMAP_BITS - vb->free; >> vaddr = vmap_block_vaddr(vb->va->va_start, pages_off); >> - vb->free -= 1UL << order; >> + WRITE_ONCE(vb->free, vb->free - (1UL << order)); > > Maybe just a matter of preference, but wouldn't an atomic_t be > better here? We'd have another locked instruction in the alloc > path, but I always find the READ_ONCE/WRITE_ONCE usage a bit > fragile that I'd rather reserve them to well documented hot > path code. I don't see a problem with these lockless quickchecks, especially not in this particular case, but no strong opinion either. Thanks tglx