[PATCH RFC 10/15] mm/slab: allow kmem_cache_alloc_bulk() with any gfp flags

From: Vlastimil Babka (SUSE)

Date: Tue Jun 09 2026 - 05:36:34 EST


The last user of gfpflags_allow_spinning() in slab is
alloc_from_pcs_bulk(), which is only called from
kmem_cache_alloc_bulk().

It turns out that gfpflags_allow_spinning() is not necessary, because
kmem_cache_alloc_bulk() is only expected to be called from context that
does allow spinning, so simply replace it with 'true'.

With that, we can remove the "@flags must allow spinning" part of the
kernel doc, as there is no more connection to the gfp flags in the slab
implementation.

Also remove a comment in alloc_slab_obj_exts() because there should be
no more false positives possible due to gfp_allowed_mask during early
boot.

Signed-off-by: Vlastimil Babka (SUSE) <vbabka@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
mm/slub.c | 11 ++---------
1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-)

diff --git a/mm/slub.c b/mm/slub.c
index b511d768e9b6..dee69e0b7780 100644
--- a/mm/slub.c
+++ b/mm/slub.c
@@ -2171,12 +2171,6 @@ int alloc_slab_obj_exts(struct slab *slab, struct kmem_cache *s,

sz = obj_exts_alloc_size(s, slab, gfp);

- /*
- * Note that allow_spin may be false during early boot and its
- * restricted GFP_BOOT_MASK. Due to kmalloc_nolock() only supporting
- * architectures with cmpxchg16b, early obj_exts will be missing for
- * very early allocations on those.
- */
if (unlikely(!allow_spin))
vec = kmalloc_nolock(sz, __GFP_ZERO | __GFP_NO_OBJ_EXT,
slab_nid(slab));
@@ -4851,7 +4845,7 @@ unsigned int alloc_from_pcs_bulk(struct kmem_cache *s, gfp_t gfp, size_t size,
}

full = barn_replace_empty_sheaf(barn, pcs->main,
- gfpflags_allow_spinning(gfp));
+ /* allow_spin = */ true);

if (full) {
stat(s, BARN_GET);
@@ -7317,8 +7311,7 @@ static bool __kmem_cache_alloc_bulk(struct kmem_cache *s, gfp_t flags,
* Allocate @size objects from @s and places them into @p. @size must be larger
* than 0.
*
- * Interrupts must be enabled when calling this function and @flags must allow
- * spinning.
+ * Interrupts must be enabled when calling this function.
*
* Unlike alloc_pages_bulk(), this function does not check for already allocated
* objects in @p, and thus the caller does not need to zero it.

--
2.54.0