Re: [PATCH] slob: add size header to all allocations

Hyeonggon Yoo
2021-10-20T11:46:46Z

On Sun, Oct 17, 2021 at 08:38:41PM -0700, Rustam Kovhaev wrote:
> Let's prepend all allocations of (PAGE_SIZE - align_offset) and less
> with the size header. This way kmem_cache_alloc() memory can be freed
> with kfree() and the other way around, as long as they are less than
> (PAGE_SIZE - align_offset).

Hello Rustam, I measured its impact on memory usage on
tiny kernel configuration as SLOB is used in very small machine.

on x86 32 bit + tinyconfig:
Before:
Slab: 668 kB

After:
Slab: 688~692 kB

it adds 20~24kB.

>
> The main reason for this change is to simplify SLOB a little bit, make
> it a bit easier to debug whenever something goes wrong.
>

It seems acceptable But I wonder it is worth to increase memory usage
to allow freeing kmem_cache_alloc-ed objects by kfree()?

Thanks,
Hyeonggon

> meminfo right after the system boot, without the patch:
> Slab: 35500 kB
>
> the same, with the patch:
> Slab: 36396 kB
>