On Tue, Aug 07, 2012 at 10:45:25AM -0400, Rik van Riel wrote: > On 08/07/2012 08:31 AM, Mel Gorman wrote: > >commit [7db8889a: mm: have order> 0 compaction start off where it left] > >introduced a caching mechanism to reduce the amount work the free page > >scanner does in compaction. However, it has a problem. Consider two process > >simultaneously scanning free pages > > > > C > >Process A M S F > > |---------------------------------------| > >Process B M FS > > Argh. Good spotting. > > >This is not optimal and it can still race but the compact_cached_free_pfn > >will be pointing to or very near a pageblock with free pages. > > Agreed on the "not optimal", but I also cannot think of a better > idea right now. Getting this fixed for 3.6 is important, we can > think of future optimizations in San Diego. > Sounds like a plan. > >Signed-off-by: Mel Gorman<mgorman@xxxxxxx> > > Reviewed-by: Rik van Riel <riel@xxxxxxxxxx> > Thanks very much. Jim, what are the chances of getting this series tested with your large data workload? As it's on top of 3.5, it should be less scary than testing 3.6-rc1 but if you are comfortable testing 3.6-rc1 then please test with just this patch on top. -- Mel Gorman 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>