Re: [patch v2] slub: add option to disable higher order debugging slabs

David Rientjes
2009-07-09T23:26:36Z

On Tue, 7 Jul 2009, Christoph Lameter wrote:

> > + * Debugging flags that require metadata to be stored in the slab, up to
> > + * DEBUG_SIZE in size.
> > + */
> > +#define DEBUG_SIZE_FLAGS (SLAB_RED_ZONE | SLAB_POISON | SLAB_STORE_USER)
> > +#define DEBUG_SIZE (3 * sizeof(void *) + 2 * sizeof(struct track))
>
> There is no need for DEBUG_SIZE since slub keeps both the size of the
> object kmem_cache->objsize and the size with the metadata kmem_cache->size
>
> If the order of both is different then the order would increase.
>

Without DEBUG_SIZE_FLAGS, the only way to determine what flags have
increased the size is in calculate_sizes() and then disable them by
default if slub_debug=O is specified. calculate_sizes() is used by
the `store', `poison', and `red_zone' callbacks, so the admin still has
the ability to enable these options even though slub_debug=O was used.

So we can either mask off the size-increasing debug bits when the cache is
created in kmem_cache_flags() like I did, or we can move the logic to
calculate_sizes() with an added formal to determine whether this is from
kmem_cache_open() or one of the attribute callbacks.

I think my solution is the cleanest and provides a single entity,
DEBUG_SIZE_FLAGS, which specifies the flags that slub_debug=O clears if
the minimum order increases.