Re: [GIT PULL] SLAB changes for v2.6.39-rc1

From: Pekka Enberg
Date: Thu Mar 24 2011 - 14:13:27 EST


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Hi Ingo,

On Thu, 24 Mar 2011, Ingo Molnar wrote:
* Pekka Enberg <penberg@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 4:41 PM, Christoph Lameter <cl@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Thu, 24 Mar 2011, Ingo Molnar wrote:

FYI, some sort of boot crash has snuck upstream in the last 24 hours:

 BUG: unable to handle kernel paging request at ffff87ffc147e020
 IP: [<ffffffff811aa762>] this_cpu_cmpxchg16b_emu+0x2/0x1c

Hmmm.. This is the fallback code for the case that the processor does not
support cmpxchg16b.

How does alternative_io() work? Does it require
alternative_instructions() to be executed. If so, the fallback code
won't be active when we enter kmem_cache_init(). Is there any reason
check_bugs() is called so late during boot? Can we do something like
the totally untested attached patch?

Does the config i sent you boot on your box? I think the bug is pretty generic
and should trigger on any box.

Here's a patch that reorganizes the alternatives fixup to happen earlier so that the fallback should work. It boots on my machine so please give it a spin if possible.

I'll try out your .config next.

Pekka