Re: [PATCH] reiserfs: use __GFP_NOFAIL instead of yield and retry loop for allocation

Do you guys think you could write some nice long comments on these flags
regarding what they mean and the policies for using them?

I gotta tell you, lots of people end up just guessing as best as they can.

Hans

Andrew Morton wrote:

>Pekka J Enberg <[email protected]> wrote:
>  
>
>>Hi,
>>
>>Pekka J Enberg <[email protected]> wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>> -      retry:
>>>> -	jl = kzalloc(sizeof(struct reiserfs_journal_list), GFP_NOFS);
>>>> -	if (!jl) {
>>>> -		yield();
>>>> -		goto retry;
>>>> -	}
>>>> +	jl = kzalloc(sizeof(struct reiserfs_journal_list),
>>>> +		     GFP_NOFS | __GFP_NOFAIL);
>>>>        
>>>>
>>On Thu, 12 Jan 2006, Andrew Morton wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>yup, that's what __GFP_NOFAIL is for: to consolidate and identify all those
>>>places which want to lock up when we're short of memory...  They all need
>>>fixing, really.
>>>      
>>>
>>Out of curiosity, are there any potential problems with combining GFP_NOFS 
>>and __GFP_NOFAIL? Can we really guarantee to give out memory if we're not 
>>allowed to page out?
>>
>>    
>>
>
>GFP_NOFS increases the risk (relative to GFP_KERNEL) because page reclaim
>can do less things than GFP_KERNEL to free memory.
>
>GFP_NOFS allocations can still perform swapspace writes, however.  GFP_NOIO
>cannot even do that.
>
>
>  
>

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---

• References:
  • [PATCH] reiserfs: use __GFP_NOFAIL instead of yield and retry loop for allocation
    • From: Pekka J Enberg <[email protected]>
  • Re: [PATCH] reiserfs: use __GFP_NOFAIL instead of yield and retry loop for allocation
    • From: Andrew Morton <[email protected]>
  • Re: [PATCH] reiserfs: use __GFP_NOFAIL instead of yield and retry loop for allocation
    • From: Pekka J Enberg <[email protected]>
  • Re: [PATCH] reiserfs: use __GFP_NOFAIL instead of yield and retry loop for allocation
    • From: Andrew Morton <[email protected]>

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