Re: [PATCH v6 6/9] mm: multigenerational lru: aging

From: Michal Hocko
Date: Wed Jan 12 2022 - 05:29:11 EST


On Tue 11-01-22 16:16:57, Yu Zhao wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 10, 2022 at 04:01:13PM +0100, Michal Hocko wrote:
> > On Thu 06-01-22 17:12:18, Michal Hocko wrote:
> > > On Tue 04-01-22 13:22:25, Yu Zhao wrote:
> > > > +static struct lru_gen_mm_walk *alloc_mm_walk(void)
> > > > +{
> > > > + if (!current->reclaim_state || !current->reclaim_state->mm_walk)
> > > > + return kvzalloc(sizeof(struct lru_gen_mm_walk), GFP_KERNEL);
> >
> > One thing I have overlooked completely.
>
> I appreciate your attention to details but GFP_KERNEL is legit in the
> reclaim path. It's been used many years in our production, e.g.,
> page reclaim
> swap_writepage()
> frontswap_store()
> zswap_frontswap_store()
> zswap_entry_cache_alloc(GFP_KERNEL)
>
> (And I always test my changes with lockdep, kasan, DEBUG_VM, etc., no
> warnings ever seen from using GFP_KERNEL in the reclaim path.)

OK, I can see it now. __need_reclaim will check for PF_MEMALLOC and skip
the fs_reclaim tracking.

I still maintain I am not really happy about (nor in the zswap example)
allocations from the direct reclaim context. I would really recommend
using a pre-allocated pool of objects.

If there are strong reasons for not doing so then at lease change that
to kzalloc.

Thanks!
--
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs