Re: [RFC PATCH v2 1/4] mm/vmalloc: warn on invalid vmalloc gfp flags

From: Vishal Moola (Oracle)

Date: Wed Nov 05 2025 - 19:00:22 EST


On Wed, Nov 05, 2025 at 02:16:24PM +0100, Uladzislau Rezki wrote:
> > On Mon, Nov 03, 2025 at 11:04:26AM -0800, Vishal Moola (Oracle) wrote:
> > > Vmalloc explicitly supports a list of flags, but we never enforce them.
> > > vmalloc has been trying to handle unsupported flags by clearing and
> > > setting flags wherever necessary. This is messy and makes the code
> > > harder to understand, when we could simply check for a supported input
> > > immediately instead.
> > >
> > > Define a helper mask and function telling callers they have passed in
> > > invalid flags, and clear those unsupported vmalloc flags.
> > >
> > > Suggested-by: Christoph Hellwig <hch@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > > Signed-off-by: Vishal Moola (Oracle) <vishal.moola@xxxxxxxxx>
> > > ---
> > > mm/vmalloc.c | 24 ++++++++++++++++++++++++
> > > 1 file changed, 24 insertions(+)
> > >
> > > diff --git a/mm/vmalloc.c b/mm/vmalloc.c
> > > index 0832f944544c..290016c7fb58 100644
> > > --- a/mm/vmalloc.c
> > > +++ b/mm/vmalloc.c
> > > @@ -3911,6 +3911,26 @@ static void *__vmalloc_area_node(struct vm_struct *area, gfp_t gfp_mask,
> > > return NULL;
> > > }
> > >
> > > +/*
> > > + * See __vmalloc_node_range() for a clear list of supported vmalloc flags.
> > > + * This gfp lists all flags currently passed through vmalloc. Currently,
> > > + * __GFP_ZERO is used by BFP and __GFP_NORETRY is used by percpu.
> > > + */
> > > +#define GFP_VMALLOC_SUPPORTED (GFP_KERNEL | GFP_ATOMIC | GFP_NOWAIT |\
> > > + __GFP_NOFAIL | __GFP_ZERO | __GFP_NORETRY)
> > > +
> Also we do support %GFP_NOFS and %GFP_NOIO flags.

Both of those are subsets of GFP_KERNEL, so I felt it was redundant to
add.