Re: [PATCH linux-next] mm/page_alloc: avoid overcounting bulk alloc in watermark check
From: Vlastimil Babka
Date: Thu Feb 12 2026 - 10:57:43 EST
On 1/29/26 15:38, shengminghu512 wrote:
> From: Shengming Hu <hu.shengming@xxxxxxxxxx>
>
> alloc_pages_bulk_noprof() only fills NULL slots and already tracks how many
> entries are pre-populated via nr_populated.
>
> The fast watermark check was adding nr_pages unconditionally, which can
> overestimate the demand. Use (nr_pages - nr_populated) instead, as an
> upper bound on the remaining pages this call can still allocate without
> scanning the whole array.
>
> Signed-off-by: Shengming Hu <hu.shengming@xxxxxxxxxx>
Reviewed-by: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@xxxxxxx>
> ---
> mm/page_alloc.c | 2 +-
> 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/mm/page_alloc.c b/mm/page_alloc.c
> index 5fd9e4a03..90b978802 100644
> --- a/mm/page_alloc.c
> +++ b/mm/page_alloc.c
> @@ -5130,7 +5130,7 @@ unsigned long alloc_pages_bulk_noprof(gfp_t gfp, int preferred_nid,
>
> cond_accept_memory(zone, 0, alloc_flags);
> retry_this_zone:
> - mark = wmark_pages(zone, alloc_flags & ALLOC_WMARK_MASK) + nr_pages;
> + mark = wmark_pages(zone, alloc_flags & ALLOC_WMARK_MASK) + nr_pages - nr_populated;
> if (zone_watermark_fast(zone, 0, mark,
> zonelist_zone_idx(ac.preferred_zoneref),
> alloc_flags, gfp)) {