Re: [PATCH v3 0/4] mm: clarify nofail memory allocation

[Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com>]

On Thu 22-08-24 06:59:08, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> On Wed, 21 Aug 2024 at 20:41, Yafang Shao <laoar.shao@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > One potential approach could be to rename GFP_NOFAIL to
> > GFP_NOFAIL_FOR_SMALL_ALLOC, specifically for smaller allocations, and
> > to clear this flag for larger allocations.
> 
> Yes, that sounds like a good way to make sure people don't blame the
> MM layer when they themselves were the cause of problems.

The reality disagrees because there is a real demand for real GFP_NOFAIL
semantic. By that I do not mean arbitrary requests and sure GFP_NOFAIL
for higher orders is really hard to achieve but kvmalloc GFP_NOFAIL for
anything larger than PAGE_SIZE is doable without a considerable burden
on the MM end.
-- 
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs