Re: [PATCH] mm/vmalloc: Do not warn on -ENOMEM from va_alloc()

From: Baoquan He

Date: Mon Aug 03 2026 - 02:41:51 EST


On 08/02/26 at 12:46pm, Uladzislau Rezki (Sony) wrote:
> Since vmalloc() accepts non-blocking GFP flags, allocation
> requests may fail when callers pass restrictive GFP masks.
>
> va_clip() may return -ENOMEM when its GFP_NOWAIT fallback
> allocation fails during NE_FIT_TYPE splitting. This is an
> expected failure, so va_alloc() should return the error
> without triggering a kernel splat.
>
> Reported-by: syzbot+61c997e6be1d9bb300ba@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Signed-off-by: Uladzislau Rezki (Sony) <urezki@xxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> mm/vmalloc.c | 13 ++++++-------
> 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/mm/vmalloc.c b/mm/vmalloc.c
> index 1afca3568b9b..7a0cbba3d29d 100644
> --- a/mm/vmalloc.c
> +++ b/mm/vmalloc.c
> @@ -1817,8 +1817,10 @@ va_alloc(struct vmap_area *va,
>
> /* Update the free vmap_area. */
> ret = va_clip(root, head, va, nva_start_addr, size);
> - if (WARN_ON_ONCE(ret))
> + if (ret) {
> + WARN_ON_ONCE(ret != -ENOMEM);
> return ret;
> + }
>
> return nva_start_addr;
> }
> @@ -1891,12 +1893,9 @@ preload_this_cpu_lock(spinlock_t *lock, gfp_t gfp_mask, int node)
>
> /*
> * Preload this CPU with one extra vmap_area object. It is used
> - * when fit type of free area is NE_FIT_TYPE. It guarantees that
> - * a CPU that does an allocation is preloaded.
> - *
> - * We do it in non-atomic context, thus it allows us to use more
> - * permissive allocation masks to be more stable under low memory
> - * condition and high memory pressure.
> + * when fit type of free area is NE_FIT_TYPE. It is best effort
> + * pre-loading. If it fails va_clip() may return -ENOMEM from its
> + * GFP_NOWAIT fallback.
> */
> if (!this_cpu_read(ne_fit_preload_node))
> va = kmem_cache_alloc_node(vmap_area_cachep, gfp_mask, node);

LGTM,

Reviewed-by: Baoquan He <baoquan.he@xxxxxxxxx>