[PATCH] mm: kvmalloc does not fallback to vmalloc for incompatible gfp flags

[Michal Hocko]

kvmalloc warned about incompatible gfp_mask to catch abusers (mostly
GFP_NOFS) with an intention that this will motivate authors of the code
to fix those. Linus argues that this just motivates people to do even
more hacks like
	if (gfp == GFP_KERNEL)
		kvmalloc
	else
		kmalloc

I haven't seen this happening but it is true that we can grow those in
future. Therefore Linus suggested to simply not fallback to vmalloc for
incompatible gfp flags and rather stick with the kmalloc path.

Requested-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxxx>
---
 mm/util.c | 6 ++++--
 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/mm/util.c b/mm/util.c
index 45fc3169e7b0..c6586c146995 100644
--- a/mm/util.c
+++ b/mm/util.c
@@ -391,7 +391,8 @@ EXPORT_SYMBOL(vm_mmap);
  * __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL is supported, and it should be used only if kmalloc is
  * preferable to the vmalloc fallback, due to visible performance drawbacks.
  *
- * Any use of gfp flags outside of GFP_KERNEL should be consulted with mm people.
+ * Please note that any use of gfp flags outside of GFP_KERNEL is careful to not
+ * fall back to vmalloc.
  */
 void *kvmalloc_node(size_t size, gfp_t flags, int node)
 {
@@ -402,7 +403,8 @@ void *kvmalloc_node(size_t size, gfp_t flags, int node)
 	 * vmalloc uses GFP_KERNEL for some internal allocations (e.g page tables)
 	 * so the given set of flags has to be compatible.
 	 */
-	WARN_ON_ONCE((flags & GFP_KERNEL) != GFP_KERNEL);
+	if ((flags & GFP_KERNEL) != GFP_KERNEL)
+		return kmalloc_node(size, flags, node);
 
 	/*
 	 * We want to attempt a large physically contiguous block first because
-- 
2.17.0

-- 
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs