Re: [PATCH v2] mm/balloon_compaction: Informative allocation warnings

From: David Hildenbrand
Date: Wed Aug 21 2019 - 15:06:17 EST


On 21.08.19 20:59, Nadav Amit wrote:
>> On Aug 21, 2019, at 11:57 AM, David Hildenbrand <david@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> On 21.08.19 11:41, Nadav Amit wrote:
>>> There is no reason to print generic warnings when balloon memory
>>> allocation fails, as failures are expected and can be handled
>>> gracefully. Since VMware balloon now uses balloon-compaction
>>> infrastructure, and suppressed these warnings before, it is also
>>> beneficial to suppress these warnings to keep the same behavior that the
>>> balloon had before.
>>>
>>> Since such warnings can still be useful to indicate that the balloon is
>>> over-inflated, print more informative and less frightening warning if
>>> allocation fails instead.
>>>
>>> Cc: David Hildenbrand <david@xxxxxxxxxx>
>>> Cc: Jason Wang <jasowang@xxxxxxxxxx>
>>> Signed-off-by: Nadav Amit <namit@xxxxxxxxxx>
>>>
>>> ---
>>>
>>> v1->v2:
>>> * Print informative warnings instead suppressing [David]
>>> ---
>>> mm/balloon_compaction.c | 7 ++++++-
>>> 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
>>>
>>> diff --git a/mm/balloon_compaction.c b/mm/balloon_compaction.c
>>> index 798275a51887..0c1d1f7689f0 100644
>>> --- a/mm/balloon_compaction.c
>>> +++ b/mm/balloon_compaction.c
>>> @@ -124,7 +124,12 @@ EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(balloon_page_list_dequeue);
>>> struct page *balloon_page_alloc(void)
>>> {
>>> struct page *page = alloc_page(balloon_mapping_gfp_mask() |
>>> - __GFP_NOMEMALLOC | __GFP_NORETRY);
>>> + __GFP_NOMEMALLOC | __GFP_NORETRY |
>>> + __GFP_NOWARN);
>>> +
>>> + if (!page)
>>> + pr_warn_ratelimited("memory balloon: memory allocation failed");
>>> +
>>> return page;
>>> }
>>> EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(balloon_page_alloc);
>>
>> Not sure if "memory balloon" is the right wording. hmmm.
>>
>> Acked-by: David Hildenbrand <david@xxxxxxxxxx>
>
> Do you have a better suggestion?
>

Not really - that's why I ack'ed :)

However, thinking about it - what about moving the check + print to the
caller and then using dev_warn... or sth. like simple "virtio_balloon:
..." ? You can then drop the warning for vmware balloon if you feel like
not needing it.

--

Thanks,

David / dhildenb