Re: [PATCH 1/2 v2] bcachefs: do not use PF_MEMALLOC_NORECLAIM

Dave Chinner
2024-08-29T13:12:23Z

On Thu, Aug 29, 2024 at 06:02:32AM -0400, Kent Overstreet wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 28, 2024 at 02:09:57PM GMT, Dave Chinner wrote:
> > On Tue, Aug 27, 2024 at 08:15:43AM +0200, Michal Hocko wrote:
> > > From: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com>
> > >
> > > bch2_new_inode relies on PF_MEMALLOC_NORECLAIM to try to allocate a new
> > > inode to achieve GFP_NOWAIT semantic while holding locks. If this
> > > allocation fails it will drop locks and use GFP_NOFS allocation context.
> > >
> > > We would like to drop PF_MEMALLOC_NORECLAIM because it is really
> > > dangerous to use if the caller doesn't control the full call chain with
> > > this flag set. E.g. if any of the function down the chain needed
> > > GFP_NOFAIL request the PF_MEMALLOC_NORECLAIM would override this and
> > > cause unexpected failure.
> > >
> > > While this is not the case in this particular case using the scoped gfp
> > > semantic is not really needed bacause we can easily pus the allocation
> > > context down the chain without too much clutter.
> > >
> > > Acked-by: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
> > > Signed-off-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com>
> >
> > Looks good to me.
> >
> > Reviewed-by: Dave Chinner <dchinner@redhat.com>
>
> Reposting what I wrote in the other thread:

I've read the thread. I've heard what you have had to say. Like
several other people, I think your position is just not practical or
reasonable.

I don't care about the purity or the safety of the API - the
practical result of PF_MEMALLOC_NORECLAIM is that __GFP_NOFAIL
allocation can now fail and that will cause unexpected kernel
crashes. Keeping existing code and API semantics working correctly
(i.e. regression free) takes precedence over new functionality or
API features that people want to introduce.

That's all there is to it. This is not a hill you need to die on.

-Dave.
--
Dave Chinner
david@fromorbit.com