On Wed 25-11-15 13:01:56, David Rientjes wrote: > On Wed, 25 Nov 2015, Michal Hocko wrote: > > > > > @@ -2642,6 +2644,13 @@ get_page_from_freelist(gfp_t gfp_mask, unsigned int order, int alloc_flags, > > > > if (zonelist_rescan) > > > > goto zonelist_scan; > > > > > > > > + /* WARN only once unless min_free_kbytes is updated */ > > > > + if (warn_alloc_no_wmarks && (alloc_flags & ALLOC_NO_WATERMARKS)) { > > > > + warn_alloc_no_wmarks = 0; > > > > + WARN(1, "Memory reserves are depleted for order:%d, mode:0x%x." > > > > + " You might consider increasing min_free_kbytes\n", > > > > + order, gfp_mask); > > > > + } > > > > return NULL; > > > > } > > > > > > > > > > Doesn't this warn for high-order allocations prior to the first call to > > > direct compaction whereas min_free_kbytes may be irrelevant? > > > > Hmm, you are concerned about high order ALLOC_NO_WATERMARKS allocation > > which happen prior to compaction, right? I am wondering whether there > > are reasonable chances that a compaction would make a difference if we > > are so depleted that there is no single page with >= order. > > ALLOC_NO_WATERMARKS with high order allocations should be rare if > > existing at all. > > > > No, I'm concerned about get_page_from_freelist() failing for an order-9 > allocation due to _fragmentation_ and then emitting this warning although > free watermarks may be gigabytes of memory higher than min watermarks. Hmm, should we allow ALLOC_NO_WATERMARKS for order-9 (or > PAGE_ALLOC_COSTLY_ORDER for that matter) allocations though? What would be the point if they are allowed to fail and so they cannot be relied on inherently? I can see that we might do that currently - e.g. TIF_MEMDIE might be set while doing hugetlb page allocation but I seriously doubt that this is intentional and probably worth fixing. > > > Providing > > > the order is good, but there's no indication when min_free_kbytes may be > > > helpful from this warning. > > > > I am not sure I understand what you mean here. > > > > You show the order of the failed allocation in your new warning. Good. > It won't help to raise min_free_kbytes to infinity if the high-order > allocation failed due to fragmentation. Does that make sense? Sure this makes sense but as I've tried to argue the warning is just a hint. It should warn that something unexpected is happening and offer a workaround. And yes increasing min_free_kbytes helps to keep more high order pages availble from my experience. If the workaround doesn't help I suspect the bug report would come more promptly. Your example about order-9 ALLOC_NO_WATERMARKS failure is more than exaggarated IMHO. > > > WARN() isn't even going to show the state of memory. > > > > I was considering to do that but it would make the code unnecessarily > > more complex. If the allocation is allowed to fail it would dump the > > allocation failure. The purpose of the message is to tell us that > > reserves are not sufficient. I am not sure seeing the memory state dump > > would help us much more. > > > > If the purpsoe of the message is to tell us when reserves are > insufficient, it doesn't achieve that purpose if allocations fail due to > fragmentation or lowmem_reserve_ratio. Do you have any better suggestion or you just think that warning about depleted reserves doesn't make any sense at all? -- Michal Hocko 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>