Andrew Morton wrote: > And yes, I agree that sites such as xfs's kmem_alloc() should be > passing __GFP_NOFAIL to tell the page allocator what's going on. I > don't think it matters a lot whether kmem_alloc() retains its retry > loop. If __GFP_NOFAIL is working correctly then it will never loop > anyway... __GFP_NOFAIL fails to work correctly if oom_killer_disabled == true. I'm wondering how oom_killer_disable() interferes with __GFP_NOFAIL allocation. We had race check after setting oom_killer_disabled to true in 3.19. ---------- linux-3.19/kernel/power/process.c ---------- int freeze_processes(void) { (...snipped...) pm_wakeup_clear(); printk("Freezing user space processes ... "); pm_freezing = true; oom_kills_saved = oom_kills_count(); error = try_to_freeze_tasks(true); if (!error) { __usermodehelper_set_disable_depth(UMH_DISABLED); oom_killer_disable(); /* * There might have been an OOM kill while we were * freezing tasks and the killed task might be still * on the way out so we have to double check for race. */ if (oom_kills_count() != oom_kills_saved && !check_frozen_processes()) { __usermodehelper_set_disable_depth(UMH_ENABLED); printk("OOM in progress."); error = -EBUSY; } else { printk("done."); } } (...snipped...) } ---------- linux-3.19/kernel/power/process.c ---------- I worry that commit c32b3cbe0d067a9c "oom, PM: make OOM detection in the freezer path raceless" might have opened a race window for __alloc_pages_may_oom(__GFP_NOFAIL) allocation to fail when OOM killer is disabled. I think something like --- a/mm/oom_kill.c +++ b/mm/oom_kill.c @@ -789,7 +789,7 @@ bool out_of_memory(struct zonelist *zonelist, gfp_t gfp_mask, bool ret = false; down_read(&oom_sem); - if (!oom_killer_disabled) { + if (!oom_killer_disabled || (gfp_mask & __GFP_NOFAIL)) { __out_of_memory(zonelist, gfp_mask, order, nodemask, force_kill); ret = true; } is needed. But such change can race with up_write() and wait_event() in oom_killer_disable(). While the comment of oom_killer_disable() says "The function cannot be called when there are runnable user tasks because the userspace would see unexpected allocation failures as a result.", aren't there still kernel threads which might do __GFP_NOFAIL allocations? After all, don't we need to recheck after setting oom_killer_disabled to true? ---------- linux.git/kernel/power/process.c ---------- int freeze_processes(void) { (...snipped...) pm_wakeup_clear(); pr_info("Freezing user space processes ... "); pm_freezing = true; error = try_to_freeze_tasks(true); if (!error) { __usermodehelper_set_disable_depth(UMH_DISABLED); pr_cont("done."); } pr_cont("\n"); BUG_ON(in_atomic()); /* * Now that the whole userspace is frozen we need to disbale * the OOM killer to disallow any further interference with * killable tasks. */ if (!error && !oom_killer_disable()) error = -EBUSY; (...snipped...) } ---------- linux.git/kernel/power/process.c ---------- -- 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>