Re: [PATCH] mempool: clarify behavior of mempool_alloc_preallocated()
From: Vlastimil Babka
Date: Wed Oct 15 2025 - 04:28:28 EST
On 10/14/25 14:17, Thomas Weißschuh wrote:
> The documentation of that function promises to never sleep.
> However on PREEMPT_RT a spinlock_t might in fact sleep.
>
> Reword the documentation so users can predict its behavior better.
>
> mempool could also replace spinlock_t with raw_spinlock_t which doesn't
> sleep even on PREEMPT_RT but that would take away the improved
> preemptibility of sleeping locks.
>
> Signed-off-by: Thomas Weißschuh <thomas.weissschuh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Acked-by: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@xxxxxxx>
> ---
> mm/mempool.c | 4 ++--
> 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/mm/mempool.c b/mm/mempool.c
> index 1c38e873e546fadcc594f041874eb42774e3df16..cceb09b75ebe35f263a5fb95ff6d400221ecbdd5 100644
> --- a/mm/mempool.c
> +++ b/mm/mempool.c
> @@ -461,8 +461,8 @@ EXPORT_SYMBOL(mempool_alloc_noprof);
> * mempool_create().
> *
> * This function is similar to mempool_alloc, but it only attempts allocating
> - * an element from the preallocated elements. It does not sleep and immediately
> - * returns if no preallocated elements are available.
> + * an element from the preallocated elements. It only takes a single spinlock_t
> + * and immediately returns if no preallocated elements are available.
> *
> * Return: pointer to the allocated element or %NULL if no elements are
> * available.
>
> ---
> base-commit: 3a8660878839faadb4f1a6dd72c3179c1df56787
> change-id: 20251014-mempool-doc-625dd4996110
>
> Best regards,