Re: vmalloc with GFP_NOFS

[Michal Hocko]

On Wed 25-04-18 11:25:09, Mikulas Patocka wrote:
> 
> 
> On Wed, 25 Apr 2018, Michal Hocko wrote:
> 
> > On Wed 25-04-18 08:43:32, Mikulas Patocka wrote:
> > > 
> > > 
> > > On Tue, 24 Apr 2018, Michal Hocko wrote:
> > > 
> > > > On Tue 24-04-18 19:17:12, Mikulas Patocka wrote:
> > > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > > On Tue, 24 Apr 2018, Michal Hocko wrote:
> > > > > 
> > > > > > > So in a perfect world a filesystem calls memalloc_nofs_save/restore and
> > > > > > > always uses GFP_KERNEL for kmalloc/vmalloc?
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Exactly! And in a dream world those memalloc_nofs_save act as a
> > > > > > documentation of the reclaim recursion documentation ;)
> > > > > > -- 
> > > > > > Michal Hocko
> > > > > > SUSE Labs
> > > > > 
> > > > > BTW. should memalloc_nofs_save and memalloc_noio_save be merged into just 
> > > > > one that prevents both I/O and FS recursion?
> > > > 
> > > > Why should FS usage stop IO altogether?
> > > 
> > > Because the IO may reach loop and loop may redirect it to the same 
> > > filesystem that is running under memalloc_nofs_save and deadlock.
> > 
> > So what is the difference with the current GFP_NOFS?
> 
> My point is that filesystems should use GFP_NOIO too. If 
> alloc_pages(GFP_NOFS) issues some random I/O to some block device, the I/O 
> may be end up being redirected (via block loop device) to the filesystem 
> that is calling alloc_pages(GFP_NOFS).

Talk to FS people, but I believe there is a good reason to distinguish
the two.

-- 
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs