Are there some potential problems that I should be aware of if I allocate the memory which doesn't have any relation to peripheral hardwares(i.e. DMA, PCI, serial port and etc) by vmalloc() instead of kmalloc()?

Are there some potential problems that I should be aware of if I allocate the memory which doesn't have any relation to peripheral hardwares(i.e. DMA, PCI, serial port and etc) by vmalloc() instead of kmalloc()?

[孙世龙 sunshilong]

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Hi, list

Besides kmalloc() is more efficient, are there some potential problems that
I should be aware of if I allocate the memory which doesn't have any
relation to peripheral hardwares(i.e. DMA,PCI,serial port and etc) by
vmalloc() instead of kmalloc() to avoid the page allocation failure(caused
by kmalloc() while there are too much memory fragment)?

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

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Re: Are there some potential problems that I should be aware of if I allocate the memory which doesn't have any relation to peripheral hardwares(i.e. DMA, PCI, serial port and etc) by vmalloc() instead of kmalloc()?

[Greg KH]

On Fri, Jun 26, 2020 at 04:30:48PM +0800, 孙世龙 sunshilong wrote:
> Hi, list
> 
> Besides kmalloc() is more efficient, are there some potential problems that
> I should be aware of if I allocate the memory which doesn't have any
> relation to peripheral hardwares(i.e. DMA,PCI,serial port and etc) by
> vmalloc() instead of kmalloc() to avoid the page allocation failure(caused
> by kmalloc() while there are too much memory fragment)?

It all depends on what you want to do with that memory.

Why are you having so many issues in allocating memory?  Does the kernel
not provide enough different ways to do this for your driver/device/use
case?

If not, what are you trying to do that is not fitting with the existing
interfaces?

thanks,

greg k-h

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Re: Are there some potential problems that I should be aware of if I allocate the memory which doesn't have any relation to peripheral hardwares(i.e. DMA, PCI, serial port and etc) by vmalloc() instead of kmalloc()?

[孙世龙 sunshilong]

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

>Why are you having so many issues in allocating memory?
I often saw the page allocation failure recently. I must resolve this problem.
I have no choice other than disabling these options
(i.e. CONFIG-MIGRATION and CONFIG-COMPACTION)
since I am using a real-time OS.
It's easier to encounter such a problem since the said options are disabled.

>Does the kernel not provide enough different ways to do this for your
driver/device/use case?
The current code snippet is using kmalloc() and often encounter the
aforementioned problem.
So I want to use vmalloc() instead of kmalloc(). What do you think about it?
The memory to be allocated doesn't have any relation to any peripheral
hardware (i.e. DMA, PCI, serial port, etc) indeed. It's just used to
store a struct
array which indicates the usage of other resources.

Best regards.

Greg KH <greg@kroah.com> 于2020年6月26日周五 下午10:13写道：

>
> On Fri, Jun 26, 2020 at 04:30:48PM +0800, 孙世龙 sunshilong wrote:
> > Hi, list
> >
> > Besides kmalloc() is more efficient, are there some potential problems that
> > I should be aware of if I allocate the memory which doesn't have any
> > relation to peripheral hardwares(i.e. DMA,PCI,serial port and etc) by
> > vmalloc() instead of kmalloc() to avoid the page allocation failure(caused
> > by kmalloc() while there are too much memory fragment)?
>
> It all depends on what you want to do with that memory.
>
> Why are you having so many issues in allocating memory?  Does the kernel
> not provide enough different ways to do this for your driver/device/use
> case?
>
> If not, what are you trying to do that is not fitting with the existing
> interfaces?
>
> thanks,
>
> greg k-h

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Re: Are there some potential problems that I should be aware of if I allocate the memory which doesn't have any relation to peripheral hardwares(i.e. DMA, PCI, serial port and etc) by vmalloc() instead of kmalloc()?

[Valdis Klētnieks]

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On Fri, 26 Jun 2020 23:36:05 +0800, 孙世龙 sunshilong said:
> Thank you for your attention to this matter.
>
> >Why are you having so many issues in allocating memory?
> I often saw the page allocation failure recently. I must resolve this problem.

As I mentioned a few days ago, the fact that a high-order allocation failed
does not necessarily mean a total failure, as often the driver can instead
allocate several smaller areas.

> I have no choice other than disabling these options
> (i.e. CONFIG-MIGRATION and CONFIG-COMPACTION)
> since I am using a real-time OS.

First, Linux is not a real-time OS.  Second, "real time" doesn't automatically
imply those two options have to be disabled.  It's trickier to do it when you
have hard real-time limits, but it's not impossible.

> The current code snippet is using kmalloc() and often encounter the
> aforementioned problem.

Having said that about migration and compaction, anybody sane who's writing for
an actual real-time system already knows *exactly* how much memory the system
will use, and the critical allocations are done at system startup to guarantee
that (a) the allocations succeed and (b) most of the memory is pre-allocated
with little chance of causing fragmentation.

> So I want to use vmalloc() instead of kmalloc(). What do you think about it?
> The memory to be allocated doesn't have any relation to any peripheral
> hardware (i.e. DMA, PCI, serial port, etc) indeed. It's just used to
> store a struct
> array which indicates the usage of other resources.

So as per the above - you allocate one struct array at driver load time for
this stuff.  You already know how big the structure/array has to be based on
the maximum number of devices or whatever you're trying to track.

And if you don't know the maximum, you're not doing real time programming. Or
at least not correctly.


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Re: Are there some potential problems that I should be aware of if I allocate the memory which doesn't have any relation to peripheral hardwares(i.e. DMA, PCI, serial port and etc) by vmalloc() instead of kmalloc()?

[孙世龙 sunshilong]

Hi, Valdis Klētnieks,Greg KH

Thanks a lot to both of you.

>As I mentioned a few days ago, the fact that a high-order allocation failed
>does not necessarily mean a total failure, as often the driver can instead
>allocate several smaller areas.
The related code snippet is not used for a driver, it's a part of the real-time
system.I don't modify too many code snippets of it.

>First, Linux is not a real-time OS.  Second, "real time" doesn't automatically
>imply those two options have to be disabled.  It's trickier to do it when you
>have hard real-time limits, but it's not impossible.
Excuse me, what do you mean by "It's trickier to do it when you have hard
real-time limits, but it's not impossible."? Could you please explain that in
simpler words?

I have to disable these options since the real-time patch requires to do it.

>Having said that about migration and compaction, anybody sane who's writing for
>an actual real-time system already knows *exactly* how much memory the system
>will use, and the critical allocations are done at system startup to guarantee
>that (a) the allocations succeed and (b) most of the memory is pre-allocated
>with little chance of causing fragmentation.
I fully understand what you mean. Your conclusion is quite right, but
there needs
a hypothesis(i.e. your have only a real-time process on the platform and don't
restart it now and then. What would happen if many real-time processes and
non-real-time processes are running on the same platform？ What would happen
if the testers restart them now and then? it causes memory
fragmentation indeed.)
lie behind it.

And "exactly how much memory of each program(i.e. instead of system) will use"
is determined by the specific applications(i.e. only the user
application programmers
know how much memory the program needs). But the memory should be allocated
before the app is started(i.e. before the entry of the main()
function), you should not
use malloc() to acquire memory in your application code snippet.For
details, see the
example below.

>So as per the above - you allocate one struct array at driver load time for
>this stuff.  You already know how big the structure/array has to be based on
>the maximum number of devices or whatever you're trying to track.
>And if you don't know the maximum, you're not doing real time programming. Or
>at least not correctly.
Not at the driver load time, but the load time of the real-time
process(i.e. before
the entry of the main() function). It needs to allocate(i.e. use
vmalloc) a huge memory
(i.e. for example 80MB, maybe 50MB (how much memory is suitable is decided by
the specific applications.) used by the user application later. And
that's ok to allocate
so huge memory size by vmalloc() and no error complained by the kernel.
As it needs a struct array to identify the usage of the said huge
memory, the real-time
patch uses kmalloc() to do the allocation and the page allocation
failure occurs.
I think there is no need to use kmalloc() at all. I want to use
vmalloc() or kmalloc()
instead of kmalloc() despite kmalloc() is more efficient.
How do you think about it?

Thank you for your generous help.
Look forward to hearing from you.
Best Regards.
sunshilong

Valdis Klētnieks <valdis.kletnieks@vt.edu> 于2020年6月27日周六 上午1:22写道：
>
> On Fri, 26 Jun 2020 23:36:05 +0800, 孙世龙 sunshilong said:
> > Thank you for your attention to this matter.
> >
> > >Why are you having so many issues in allocating memory?
> > I often saw the page allocation failure recently. I must resolve this problem.
>
> As I mentioned a few days ago, the fact that a high-order allocation failed
> does not necessarily mean a total failure, as often the driver can instead
> allocate several smaller areas.
>
> > I have no choice other than disabling these options
> > (i.e. CONFIG-MIGRATION and CONFIG-COMPACTION)
> > since I am using a real-time OS.
>
> First, Linux is not a real-time OS.  Second, "real time" doesn't automatically
> imply those two options have to be disabled.  It's trickier to do it when you
> have hard real-time limits, but it's not impossible.
>
> > The current code snippet is using kmalloc() and often encounter the
> > aforementioned problem.
>
> Having said that about migration and compaction, anybody sane who's writing for
> an actual real-time system already knows *exactly* how much memory the system
> will use, and the critical allocations are done at system startup to guarantee
> that (a) the allocations succeed and (b) most of the memory is pre-allocated
> with little chance of causing fragmentation.
>
> > So I want to use vmalloc() instead of kmalloc(). What do you think about it?
> > The memory to be allocated doesn't have any relation to any peripheral
> > hardware (i.e. DMA, PCI, serial port, etc) indeed. It's just used to
> > store a struct
> > array which indicates the usage of other resources.
>
> So as per the above - you allocate one struct array at driver load time for
> this stuff.  You already know how big the structure/array has to be based on
> the maximum number of devices or whatever you're trying to track.
>
> And if you don't know the maximum, you're not doing real time programming. Or
> at least not correctly.
>

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Re: Are there some potential problems that I should be aware of if I allocate the memory which doesn't have any relation to peripheral hardwares(i.e. DMA, PCI, serial port and etc) by vmalloc() instead of kmalloc()?

[Greg KH]

On Sat, Jun 27, 2020 at 01:16:50PM +0800, 孙世龙 sunshilong wrote:
> >So as per the above - you allocate one struct array at driver load time for
> >this stuff.  You already know how big the structure/array has to be based on
> >the maximum number of devices or whatever you're trying to track.
> >And if you don't know the maximum, you're not doing real time programming. Or
> >at least not correctly.
> Not at the driver load time, but the load time of the real-time
> process(i.e. before
> the entry of the main() function). It needs to allocate(i.e. use
> vmalloc) a huge memory
> (i.e. for example 80MB, maybe 50MB (how much memory is suitable is decided by
> the specific applications.) used by the user application later. And
> that's ok to allocate
> so huge memory size by vmalloc() and no error complained by the kernel.

Applications do not allocate kernel memory at all, that's up to a kernel
driver.  Userspace does things in totally different ways.

Again, do you have a pointer to your kernel source code that is doing
this allocation that is failing?

thanks,

greg k-h

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Re: Are there some potential problems that I should be aware of if I allocate the memory which doesn't have any relation to peripheral hardwares(i.e. DMA, PCI, serial port and etc) by vmalloc() instead of kmalloc()?

[孙世龙 sunshilong]

Hi, Greg KH
Thank you for your patience and your help.
>What code is causing that failure by asking for memory that you do not
>have?  Please fix that up, the core kernel should be fine.

>Then fix your broken driver that is asking for so much memory on a
>system that does not have it.  Do you have a pointer to your driver
>anywhere so we can review it?

>Applications do not allocate kernel memory at all, that's up to a kernel
>driver.  Userspace does things in totally different ways.
Not at the driver load time, but the load time of the real-time
process(i.e. **before the entry of the main() function**).It invokes
a systemcall which internally invokes kmalloc().  I'd show you the
related code and the call trace info below.

>As was already stated, the use of "real-time" has nothing to do with
>those options, or memory allocation, or anything else here.  Please do
>not get confused about the determinisitic operation of
>interrupts/scheduling vs. anything else.
The two said options should be disabled since I am using a hard real-time
system(xenomai+linux).


>Again, do you have a pointer to your kernel source code that is doing
>this allocation that is failing?
Background info:
the said real-time system is xenomai3.1+linux4.19.84.

Here is the most important error info:
page allocation failure: order:9, mode:0x60c0c0
(GFP_KERNEL|__GFP_COMP|__GFP_ZERO), nodemask=(null)

Here is the related call trace
(the whole log is seen at the footnote, I'd try to explain
my current understanding to the related code snippet blow):
dump_stack+0x9e/0xc8
warn_alloc+0x100/0x190
__alloc_pages_slowpath+0xb93/0xbd0
__alloc_pages_nodemask+0x26d/0x2b0
alloc_pages_current+0x6a/0xe0
kmalloc_order+0x18/0x40
kmalloc_order_trace+0x24/0xb0
__kmalloc+0x20e/0x230
? __vmalloc_node_range+0x171/0x250
xnheap_init+0x87/0x200
? remove_process+0xc0/0xc0
cobalt_umm_init+0x61/0xb0

Here is my current understanding of the most related snippet:
As the aforementioned call trace, the failure has some relation
to xnheap_init().

Kzalloc() is invoked by xnheap_init() in the xenomai source code(see
https://gitlab.denx.de/Xenomai/xenomai/-/blob/v3.1/kernel/cobalt/heap.c).
For your convenience, here is the most related code:
int xnheap_init(struct xnheap *heap, void *membase, size_t size)
{
    ...
nrpages = size >> XNHEAP_PAGE_SHIFT;
heap->pagemap = kzalloc(sizeof(struct xnheap_pgentry) * nrpages,
GFP_KERNEL);
...
}


As per the source of Linux kernel
(https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v4.9.182/source/include/linux/slab.h#L634),
kzalloc() invokes kmalloc() with a option of __GFP_ZERO.
So, we can say that kmalloc() is finally called by xnheap_init().

What's the exact value of the variable "size" (which is one of the input
arguments of xnheap_init())?
There is a clue from the said call trace.

Attach_process() is invoked by cobalt_umm_init().
It's the attach_proceess function passes the value to xnheap_init function(
see https://gitlab.denx.de/Xenomai/xenomai/-/blob/v3.1/kernel/cobalt/posix/process.c).
For your convenience, here is the most related code:
static int attach_process(struct cobalt_process *process)
{
...
ret = cobalt_umm_init(&p->umm, CONFIG_XENO_OPT_PRIVATE_HEAPSZ * 1024,
     post_ppd_release);
if (ret)
return ret;
...
}

So, the size passes to kmalloc() has a direct relation (for details,
see below) to
CONFIG_XENO_OPT_PRIVATE_HEAPSZ.
And CONFIG_XENO_OPT_PRIVATE_HEAPSZ is set to 81920(i.e. 81920KB
memory needs to be allocated by vmalloc()) when setting the kconfig.
Our user application may report the error of out of memory if I set
CONFIG_XENO_OPT_PRIVATE_HEAPSZ to a relatively small value(say 40MB).

As I said before, I have set the size of  private heap to a huge value.
This huge memory could be allocated by __vmalloc() successfully.
The private heap is managed by "pages" and each of the pages is 512Bytes.
Xenomai uses the struct named xnheap_pgentry to indicates the usage of
each page(of the private heap).
Each xnheap_pgentry needs 12Bytes(i.e. sizeof(xnheap_pgentry)=12).

And the said variable named nrpages is equivalent to the above equation.
So another 1920KB(i.e. nrpages*sizeof(xnheap_pgentry) memory
(to indicates the usage of each page of the private heap)
has to be allocated by kmalloc(). And it finally caused the allocation
failure.

I think the kmalloc function should be replaced by kvmalloc() or
 vmalloc(). It just needs some memory to store the array of
struct xnheap_pgentry. So the memory does not need to be physically
continuous. What do you think about it?

Here is the whole log:
[22041.387673] HelloWorld: page allocation failure: order:9,
mode:0x60c0c0(GFP_KERNEL|__GFP_COMP|__GFP_ZERO), nodemask=(null)
[22041.387678] HelloWorld cpuset=/ mems_allowed=0
[22041.387690] CPU: 3 PID: 27737 Comm: HelloWorldExamp Not tainted 4.19.84
[22041.387695] I-pipe domain: Linux
[22041.387697] Call Trace:
[22041.387711]  dump_stack+0x9e/0xc8
[22041.387718]  warn_alloc+0x100/0x190
[22041.387725]  __alloc_pages_slowpath+0xb93/0xbd0
[22041.387732]  __alloc_pages_nodemask+0x26d/0x2b0
[22041.387739]  alloc_pages_current+0x6a/0xe0
[22041.387744]  kmalloc_order+0x18/0x40
[22041.387748]  kmalloc_order_trace+0x24/0xb0
[22041.387754]  __kmalloc+0x20e/0x230
[22041.387759]  ? __vmalloc_node_range+0x171/0x250
[22041.387765]  xnheap_init+0x87/0x200
[22041.387770]  ? remove_process+0xc0/0xc0
[22041.387775]  cobalt_umm_init+0x61/0xb0
[22041.387779]  cobalt_process_attach+0x64/0x4c0
[22041.387784]  ? snprintf+0x45/0x70
[22041.387790]  ? security_capable+0x46/0x60
[22041.387794]  bind_personality+0x5a/0x120
[22041.387798]  cobalt_bind_core+0x27/0x60
[22041.387803]  CoBaLt_bind+0x18a/0x1d0
[22041.387812]  ? handle_head_syscall+0x3f0/0x3f0
[22041.387816]  ipipe_syscall_hook+0x119/0x340
[22041.387822]  __ipipe_notify_syscall+0xd3/0x190
[22041.387827]  ? __x64_sys_rt_sigaction+0x7b/0xd0
[22041.387832]  ipipe_handle_syscall+0x3e/0xc0
[22041.387837]  do_syscall_64+0x3b/0x250
[22041.387842]  entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xa9
[22041.387847] RIP: 0033:0x7ff3d074e481
[22041.387852] Code: 89 c6 48 8b 05 10 6b 21 00 c7 04 24 00 00 00 a4
8b 38 85 ff 75 43 bb 00 00 00 10 c7 44 24 04 11 00 00 00 48 89 e7 89
d8 0f 05 <bf> 04 00 00 00 48 89 c3 e8 e2 e0 ff ff 8d 53 26 83 fa 26 0f
87 46
[22041.387855] RSP: 002b:00007ffc62caf210 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX:
0000000010000000
[22041.387860] RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 0000000010000000 RCX: 00007ff3d074e481
[22041.387863] RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: 00007ffc62caf210
[22041.387865] RBP: 00007ff3d20a3780 R08: 00007ffc62caf160 R09: 0000000000000000
[22041.387868] R10: 0000000000000008 R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 00007ff3d0965b00
[22041.387870] R13: 0000000001104320 R14: 00007ff3d0965d40 R15: 0000000001104050
[22041.387876] Mem-Info:
[22041.387885] active_anon:56054 inactive_anon:109301 isolated_anon:0
                active_file:110190 inactive_file:91980 isolated_file:0
                unevictable:9375 dirty:1 writeback:0 unstable:0
                slab_reclaimable:22463 slab_unreclaimable:19122
                mapped:101678 shmem:25642 pagetables:7663 bounce:0
                free:456443 free_pcp:0 free_cma:0
[22041.387891] Node 0 active_anon:224216kB inactive_anon:437204kB
active_file:440760kB inactive_file:367920kB unevictable:37500kB
isolated(anon):0kB isolated(file):0kB mapped:406712kB dirty:4kB
writeback:0kB shmem:102568kB writeback_tmp:0kB unstable:0kB
all_unreclaimable? no
[22041.387893] Node 0 DMA free:15892kB min:32kB low:44kB high:56kB
active_anon:0kB inactive_anon:0kB active_file:0kB inactive_file:0kB
unevictable:0kB writepending:0kB present:15992kB managed:15892kB
mlocked:0kB kernel_stack:0kB pagetables:0kB bounce:0kB free_pcp:0kB
local_pcp:0kB free_cma:0kB
[22041.387901] lowmem_reserve[]: 0 2804 3762 3762
[22041.387912] Node 0 DMA32 free:1798624kB min:5836kB low:8704kB
high:11572kB active_anon:188040kB inactive_anon:219400kB
active_file:184156kB inactive_file:346776kB unevictable:24900kB
writepending:0kB present:3017476kB managed:2927216kB mlocked:24900kB
kernel_stack:1712kB pagetables:7564kB bounce:0kB free_pcp:0kB
local_pcp:0kB free_cma:0kB
[22041.387920] lowmem_reserve[]: 0 0 958 958
[22041.387930] Node 0 Normal free:11256kB min:1992kB low:2972kB
high:3952kB active_anon:36084kB inactive_anon:218100kB
active_file:257220kB inactive_file:21148kB unevictable:12600kB
writepending:4kB present:1048576kB managed:981268kB mlocked:12600kB
kernel_stack:5280kB pagetables:23088kB bounce:0kB free_pcp:0kB
local_pcp:0kB free_cma:0kB
[22041.387938] lowmem_reserve[]: 0 0 0 0
[22041.387948] Node 0 DMA: 3*4kB (U) 3*8kB (U) 1*16kB (U) 1*32kB (U)
3*64kB (U) 0*128kB 1*256kB (U) 0*512kB 1*1024kB (U) 1*2048kB (M)
3*4096kB (M) = 15892kB
[22041.387990] Node 0 DMA32: 14912*4kB (UME) 13850*8kB (UME) 9325*16kB
(UME) 5961*32kB (UME) 3622*64kB (UME) 2359*128kB (UME) 1128*256kB
(UME) 524*512kB (M) 194*1024kB (UM) 0*2048kB 0*4096kB = 1799872kB
[22041.388033] Node 0 Normal: 1643*4kB (UME) 71*8kB (UME) 47*16kB (UM)
35*32kB (M) 38*64kB (M) 1*128kB (M) 0*256kB 0*512kB 0*1024kB 0*2048kB
0*4096kB = 11572kB
[22041.388071] Node 0 hugepages_total=0 hugepages_free=0
hugepages_surp=0 hugepages_size=2048kB
[22041.388073] 232507 total pagecache pages
[22041.388077] 7 pages in swap cache
[22041.388079] Swap cache stats: add 1015, delete 1008, find 0/1
[22041.388081] Free swap  = 995068kB
[22041.388083] Total swap = 999420kB
[22041.388086] 1020511 pages RAM
[22041.388088] 0 pages HighMem/MovableOnly
[22041.388090] 39417 pages reserved
[22041.388092] 0 pages hwpoisoned


>
> On Sat, Jun 27, 2020 at 01:16:50PM +0800, 孙世龙 sunshilong wrote:
> > >So as per the above - you allocate one struct array at driver load time for
> > >this stuff.  You already know how big the structure/array has to be based on
> > >the maximum number of devices or whatever you're trying to track.
> > >And if you don't know the maximum, you're not doing real time programming. Or
> > >at least not correctly.
> > Not at the driver load time, but the load time of the real-time
> > process(i.e. before
> > the entry of the main() function). It needs to allocate(i.e. use
> > vmalloc) a huge memory
> > (i.e. for example 80MB, maybe 50MB (how much memory is suitable is decided by
> > the specific applications.) used by the user application later. And
> > that's ok to allocate
> > so huge memory size by vmalloc() and no error complained by the kernel.
>
> Applications do not allocate kernel memory at all, that's up to a kernel
> driver.  Userspace does things in totally different ways.
>
> Again, do you have a pointer to your kernel source code that is doing
> this allocation that is failing?
>
> thanks,
>
> greg k-h

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Re: Are there some potential problems that I should be aware of if I allocate the memory which doesn't have any relation to peripheral hardwares(i.e. DMA, PCI, serial port and etc) by vmalloc() instead of kmalloc()?

[Greg KH]

On Sat, Jun 27, 2020 at 02:00:50PM +0800, 孙世龙 sunshilong wrote:
> Hi, Greg KH
> Thank you for your patience and your help.
> >What code is causing that failure by asking for memory that you do not
> >have?  Please fix that up, the core kernel should be fine.
> 
> >Then fix your broken driver that is asking for so much memory on a
> >system that does not have it.  Do you have a pointer to your driver
> >anywhere so we can review it?
> 
> >Applications do not allocate kernel memory at all, that's up to a kernel
> >driver.  Userspace does things in totally different ways.
> Not at the driver load time, but the load time of the real-time
> process(i.e. **before the entry of the main() function**).It invokes
> a systemcall which internally invokes kmalloc().  I'd show you the
> related code and the call trace info below.

<snip>

> Kzalloc() is invoked by xnheap_init() in the xenomai source code(see
> https://gitlab.denx.de/Xenomai/xenomai/-/blob/v3.1/kernel/cobalt/heap.c).


Hah, cobalt, that's your problem.

Seriously, that's a crazy architecture, one that turned out not to
really work well compared to what ended up getting merged upstream.

As you are really messing with how Linux works with this add-on, I
strongly suggest you get support from the Xenomai developers as they are
the only ones that can support you.  The Linux kernel community can't,
sorry.

Best of luck!

greg k-h

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Re: Are there some potential problems that I should be aware of if I allocate the memory which doesn't have any relation to peripheral hardwares(i.e. DMA, PCI, serial port and etc) by vmalloc() instead of kmalloc()?

[Greg KH]

On Fri, Jun 26, 2020 at 11:36:05PM +0800, 孙世龙 sunshilong wrote:
> Thank you for your attention to this matter.
> 
> >Why are you having so many issues in allocating memory?
> I often saw the page allocation failure recently. I must resolve this problem.

What code is causing that failure by asking for memory that you do not
have?  Please fix that up, the core kernel should be fine.

> I have no choice other than disabling these options
> (i.e. CONFIG-MIGRATION and CONFIG-COMPACTION)
> since I am using a real-time OS.

As was already stated, the use of "real-time" has nothing to do with
those options, or memory allocation, or anything else here.  Please do
not get confused about the determinisitic operation of
interrupts/scheduling vs. anything else.

> It's easier to encounter such a problem since the said options are disabled.

Then fix your broken driver that is asking for so much memory on a
system that does not have it.  Do you have a pointer to your driver
anywhere so we can review it?

good luck!

greg k-h

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Are there some potential problems that I should be aware of if I allocate the memory which doesn't have any relation to peripheral hardwares(i.e. DMA,PCI,serial port and etc) by vmalloc() instead of kmalloc()?

[孙世龙 sunshilong]

Hi, list

Besides kmalloc() is more efficient, are there some potential problems
that I should be aware of if I allocate the memory which doesn't have
any relation to peripheral hardwares(i.e. DMA,PCI,serial port and etc)
by vmalloc() instead of kmalloc() to avoid the page allocation failure
caused by kmalloc() while there are too many memory fragments?

Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Best Regards.