As Steven Rostedt has pointer out: Rescheduling could occur on a differnet processor after the determination of the per cpu pointer and before the tid is retrieved. This could result in allocation from the wrong node in slab_alloc. The effect is much more severe in slab_free() where we could free to the freelist of the wrong page. The window for something like that occurring is pretty small but it is possible. Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter <cl@xxxxxxxxx> Index: linux/mm/slub.c =================================================================== --- linux.orig/mm/slub.c 2013-01-23 15:06:39.805154107 -0600 +++ linux/mm/slub.c 2013-01-23 15:24:47.656868067 -0600 @@ -2331,13 +2331,18 @@ static __always_inline void *slab_alloc_ s = memcg_kmem_get_cache(s, gfpflags); redo: - /* * Must read kmem_cache cpu data via this cpu ptr. Preemption is * enabled. We may switch back and forth between cpus while * reading from one cpu area. That does not matter as long * as we end up on the original cpu again when doing the cmpxchg. + * + * Preemption is disabled for the retrieval of the tid because that + * must occur from the current processor. We cannot allow rescheduling + * on a different processor between the determination of the pointer + * and the retrieval of the tid. */ + preempt_disable(); c = __this_cpu_ptr(s->cpu_slab); /* @@ -2347,7 +2352,7 @@ redo: * linked list in between. */ tid = c->tid; - barrier(); + preempt_enable(); object = c->freelist; page = c->page; @@ -2594,10 +2599,11 @@ redo: * data is retrieved via this pointer. If we are on the same cpu * during the cmpxchg then the free will succedd. */ + preempt_disable(); c = __this_cpu_ptr(s->cpu_slab); tid = c->tid; - barrier(); + preempt_enable(); if (likely(page == c->page)) { set_freepointer(s, object, c->freelist); -- 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>