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Andrew Morton authored
This patch reinstates __GFP_HIGH functionality. __GFP_HIGH means "able to dip into the emergency pools". However, somewhere along the line this got broken. __GFP_HIGH ceased to do anything. Instead, !__GFP_WAIT is used to tell the page allocator to try harder. __GFP_HIGH makes sense. The concepts of "unable to sleep" and "should try harder" are quite separate, and overloading !__GFP_WAIT to mean "should access emergency pools" seems wrong. This patch fixes a problem in mempool_alloc(). mempool_alloc() tries the first allocation with __GFP_WAIT cleared. If that fails, it tries again with __GFP_WAIT enabled (if the caller can support __GFP_WAIT). So it is currently performing an atomic allocation first, even though the caller said that they're prepared to go in and call the page stealer. I thought this was a mempool bug, but Ingo said: > no, it's not GFP_ATOMIC. The important difference is __GFP_HIGH, which > triggers the intrusive highprio allocation mode. Otherwise gfp_nowait is > just a nonblocking allocation of the same type as the original gfp_mask. > ... > what i've added is a bit more subtle allocation method, with both > performance and balancing-correctness in mind: > > 1. allocate via gfp_mask, but nonblocking > 2. if failure => try to get from the pool if the pool is 'full enough'. > 3. if failure => allocate with gfp_mask [which might block] > > there is performance data that this method improves bounce-IO performance > significantly, because even under VM pressure (when gfp_mask would block) > we can still use up to 50% of the memory pool without blocking (and > without endangering deadlock-free allocation). Ie. the memory pool is also > a fast 'frontside cache' of memory elements. Ingo was assuming that __GFP_HIGH was still functional. It isn't, and the mempool design wants it.
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