Re: [PATCH v2] tun: avoid high-order page allocation for packet header

[Eric Dumazet]

On Tue, Aug 1, 2023 at 11:37 AM Eric Dumazet <edumazet@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Aug 1, 2023 at 1:07 AM Tahsin Erdogan <trdgn@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > When GSO is not enabled and a packet is transmitted via writev(), all
> > payload is treated as header which requires a contiguous memory allocation.
> > This allocation request is harder to satisfy, and may even fail if there is
> > enough fragmentation.
> >
> > Note that sendmsg() code path limits the linear copy length, so this change
> > makes writev() and sendmsg() more consistent.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Tahsin Erdogan <trdgn@xxxxxxxxxx>
> > ---
>
> I will have to tweak one existing packetdrill test, nothing major.
>
> Tested-by: Eric Dumazet <edumazet@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Reviewed-by: Eric Dumazet <edumazet@xxxxxxxxxx>

I have to take this back, sorry.

We need to change alloc_skb_with_frags() and tun.c to attempt
high-order allocations,
otherwise tun users sending very large buffers will regress.
(Even if this _could_ fail as you pointed out if memory is tight/fragmented)

I am working to make the change in alloc_skb_with_frags() and in tun,
we can apply your patch after this prereq.