linux-mm.kvack.org archive mirror
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: Johannes Weiner <hannes@cmpxchg.org>
To: Glauber Costa <glommer@parallels.com>
Cc: Christoph Lameter <cl@linux.com>,
	linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
	linux-mm@kvack.org, David Rientjes <rientjes@google.com>,
	Pekka Enberg <penberg@kernel.org>,
	Andrea Arcangeli <aarcange@redhat.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] slub: use free_page instead of put_page for freeing kmalloc allocation
Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2012 19:10:19 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20120802171019.GA1239@cmpxchg.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <501AB013.1090607@parallels.com>

On Thu, Aug 02, 2012 at 08:51:31PM +0400, Glauber Costa wrote:
> On 08/02/2012 08:42 PM, Johannes Weiner wrote:
> > On Thu, Aug 02, 2012 at 09:06:41AM -0500, Christoph Lameter wrote:
> >> On Thu, 2 Aug 2012, Glauber Costa wrote:
> >>
> >>> diff --git a/mm/slub.c b/mm/slub.c
> >>> index e517d43..9ca4e20 100644
> >>> --- a/mm/slub.c
> >>> +++ b/mm/slub.c
> >>> @@ -3453,7 +3453,7 @@ void kfree(const void *x)
> >>>  	if (unlikely(!PageSlab(page))) {
> >>>  		BUG_ON(!PageCompound(page));
> >>>  		kmemleak_free(x);
> >>> -		put_page(page);
> >>> +		__free_pages(page, compound_order(page));
> >>
> >> Hmmm... put_page would have called put_compound_page(). which would have
> >> called the dtor function. dtor is set to __free_pages() ok which does
> >> mlock checks and verifies that the page is in a proper condition for
> >> freeing. Then it calls free_one_page().
> >>
> >> __free_pages() decrements the refcount and then calls __free_pages_ok().
> >>
> >> So we loose the checking and the dtor stuff with this patch. Guess that is
> >> ok?
> > 
> > The changelog is not correct, however.  People DO get pages underlying
> > slab objects and even free the slab objects before returning the page.
> > See recent fix:
> 
> Well, yes, in the sense that slab objects are page-backed.
> 
> The point is that a user of kmalloc/kfree should not treat a memory area
> as if it were a page, even if it is page-sized.

I whole-heartedly agree.  But it's hard to verify there aren't any
doing that.  And even though it's ugly to do, it's technically
working, no?  No longer supporting it would be a regression.

> If it is just the Changelog you are unhappy about, I can do another
> submission rewording it.

__free_pages still respects the refcount, so I think the Changelog is
not actually appropriate for the change you're making.  You're just
changing what Christoph outlined above, the compound page handling.

--
To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in
the body to majordomo@kvack.org.  For more info on Linux MM,
see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ .
Don't email: <a href=mailto:"dont@kvack.org"> email@kvack.org </a>

  reply	other threads:[~2012-08-02 17:10 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 6+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2012-08-02 13:11 [PATCH] slub: use free_page instead of put_page for freeing kmalloc allocation Glauber Costa
2012-08-02 14:06 ` Christoph Lameter
2012-08-02 16:42   ` Johannes Weiner
2012-08-02 16:51     ` Glauber Costa
2012-08-02 17:10       ` Johannes Weiner [this message]
2012-08-02 17:24         ` Glauber Costa

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=20120802171019.GA1239@cmpxchg.org \
    --to=hannes@cmpxchg.org \
    --cc=aarcange@redhat.com \
    --cc=akpm@linux-foundation.org \
    --cc=cl@linux.com \
    --cc=glommer@parallels.com \
    --cc=linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org \
    --cc=linux-mm@kvack.org \
    --cc=penberg@kernel.org \
    --cc=rientjes@google.com \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for NNTP newsgroup(s).