[PATCH v3] dma/pool: distinguish between missing and exhausted atomic pools

From: Sai Sree Kartheek Adivi

Date: Wed Jan 28 2026 - 08:36:36 EST


Currently, dma_alloc_from_pool() unconditionally warns and dumps a stack
trace when an allocation fails, with the message "Failed to get suitable
pool".

This conflates two distinct failure modes:
1. Configuration error: No atomic pool is available for the requested
DMA mask (a fundamental system setup issue)
2. Resource Exhaustion: A suitable pool exists but is currently full (a
recoverable runtime state)

This lack of distinction prevents drivers from using __GFP_NOWARN to
suppress error messages during temporary pressure spikes, such as when
awaiting synchronous reclaim of descriptors.

Refactor the error handling to distinguish these cases:
- If no suitable pool is found, keep the unconditional WARN regarding
the missing pool.
- If a pool was found but is exhausted, respect __GFP_NOWARN and update
the warning message to explicitly state "DMA pool exhausted".

Fixes: 9420139f516d ("dma-pool: fix coherent pool allocations for IOMMU mappings")
Signed-off-by: Sai Sree Kartheek Adivi <s-adivi@xxxxxx>
---

Changes from v2 to v3:
- Distinguish between "no suitable pool is found" and "pool is
exhausted" cases.
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20260112104749.4132641-1-s-adivi@xxxxxx/

kernel/dma/pool.c | 7 ++++++-
1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/kernel/dma/pool.c b/kernel/dma/pool.c
index c5da29ad010c4..2b2fbb7092429 100644
--- a/kernel/dma/pool.c
+++ b/kernel/dma/pool.c
@@ -277,15 +277,20 @@ struct page *dma_alloc_from_pool(struct device *dev, size_t size,
{
struct gen_pool *pool = NULL;
struct page *page;
+ bool pool_found = false;

while ((pool = dma_guess_pool(pool, gfp))) {
+ pool_found = true;
page = __dma_alloc_from_pool(dev, size, pool, cpu_addr,
phys_addr_ok);
if (page)
return page;
}

- WARN(1, "Failed to get suitable pool for %s\n", dev_name(dev));
+ if (pool_found)
+ WARN(!(gfp & __GFP_NOWARN), "DMA pool exhausted for %s\n", dev_name(dev));
+ else
+ WARN(1, "Failed to get suitable pool for %s\n", dev_name(dev));
return NULL;
}

--
2.34.1