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From: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
To: Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
Cc: Minchan Kim <minchan.kim@gmail.com>,
	Dave Young <hidave.darkstar@gmail.com>,
	linux-mm <linux-mm@kvack.org>,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
	Mel Gorman <mel@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: readahead and oom
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 12:47:43 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20110426124743.e58d9746.akpm@linux-foundation.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20110426092029.GA27053@localhost>

On Tue, 26 Apr 2011 17:20:29 +0800
Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@intel.com> wrote:

> Pass __GFP_NORETRY|__GFP_NOWARN for readahead page allocations.
> 
> readahead page allocations are completely optional. They are OK to
> fail and in particular shall not trigger OOM on themselves.

I have distinct recollections of trying this many years ago, finding
that it caused problems then deciding not to do it.  But I can't find
an email trail and I don't remember the reasons :(

If the system is so stressed for memory that the oom-killer might get
involved then the readahead pages may well be getting reclaimed before
the application actually gets to use them.  But that's just an aside.

Ho hum.  The patch *seems* good (as it did 5-10 years ago ;)) but there
may be surprising side-effects which could be exposed under heavy
testing.  Testing which I'm sure hasn't been performed...


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  parent reply	other threads:[~2011-04-26 19:51 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 43+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2011-04-26  5:49 readahead and oom Dave Young
2011-04-26  5:55 ` Wu Fengguang
2011-04-26  6:05   ` Dave Young
2011-04-26  6:07     ` Dave Young
2011-04-26  6:25       ` Wu Fengguang
2011-04-26  6:29         ` Dave Young
2011-04-26  6:34           ` Wu Fengguang
2011-04-26  6:50             ` KOSAKI Motohiro
2011-04-26  7:41             ` Minchan Kim
2011-04-26  9:20               ` Wu Fengguang
2011-04-26  9:28                 ` Minchan Kim
2011-04-26 10:18                   ` Pekka Enberg
2011-04-26 19:47                 ` Andrew Morton [this message]
2011-04-28  4:19                   ` Wu Fengguang
2011-04-28 13:36                   ` [RFC][PATCH] mm: cut down __GFP_NORETRY page allocation failures Wu Fengguang
2011-04-28 13:38                     ` [patch] vmstat: account " Wu Fengguang
2011-04-28 13:50                       ` KOSAKI Motohiro
2011-04-29  2:28                     ` [RFC][PATCH] mm: cut down __GFP_NORETRY " Wu Fengguang
2011-04-29  2:58                       ` Wu Fengguang
2011-04-30 14:17                       ` Wu Fengguang
2011-05-01 16:35                         ` Minchan Kim
2011-05-01 16:37                           ` Minchan Kim
2011-05-02 10:14                             ` KOSAKI Motohiro
2011-05-03  0:53                               ` Minchan Kim
2011-05-03  1:25                                 ` KOSAKI Motohiro
2011-05-02 10:29                           ` Wu Fengguang
2011-05-02 11:08                             ` Wu Fengguang
2011-05-03  0:49                             ` Minchan Kim
2011-05-03  3:51                               ` Wu Fengguang
2011-05-03  4:17                                 ` Minchan Kim
2011-05-02 13:29                           ` Wu Fengguang
2011-05-02 13:49                             ` Wu Fengguang
2011-05-03  0:27                               ` Satoru Moriya
2011-05-03  2:49                                 ` Wu Fengguang
2011-05-04  1:56                     ` Dave Young
2011-05-04  2:32                       ` Dave Young
2011-05-04  2:56                         ` Wu Fengguang
2011-05-04  4:23                           ` Wu Fengguang
2011-05-04  4:00                       ` Wu Fengguang
2011-05-04  7:33                         ` Dave Young
2011-04-26  6:13     ` readahead and oom Wu Fengguang
2011-04-26  6:23       ` Dave Young
2011-04-26  9:37 ` [PATCH] mm: readahead page allocations are OK to fail Wu Fengguang

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