Re: [Bug #11342] Linux 2.6.27-rc3: kernel BUG at mm/vmalloc.c - bisected

David Miller
2008-08-26T07:46:07Z

From: Ingo Molnar <mingo-X9Un+BFzKDI@public.gmane.org>
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 09:22:20 +0200

> And i guess the next generation of 4K CPUs support should just get away
> from cpumask_t-on-kernel-stack model altogether, as the current model is
> not maintainable. We tried the on-kernel-stack variant, and it really
> does not work reliably. We can fix this in v2.6.28.

I recenetly did some work on sparc64 to use cpumask pointers
as much as possible.

The only case that didn't work was due to a limitation in
arch interfaces for the new generic smp_call_function() code.
It passes a cpumask_t instead of a pointer to one via
arch_send_call_function_ipi().

But other than that, the whole sparc64 SMP stuff uses cpumask_t
pointers only.

What it comes down to is that you have to do the "self cpu"
and other tests in the cross-call dispatch routines themselves,
instead of at the top-level working on cpumask_t objects.

Otherwise you have to modify cpumask_t objects and thus pluck
them onto the stack where they take up silly amounts of space.