Re: [RFC][PATCH] PM: Force GFP_NOIO during suspend/resume (was: Re: [linux-pm] Memory allocations in .suspend became very unreliable)

Rafael J. Wysocki
2010-01-19T20:36:52Z

On Tuesday 19 January 2010, Oliver Neukum wrote:
> Am Montag, 18. Januar 2010 21:41:49 schrieb Rafael J. Wysocki:
> > On Monday 18 January 2010, Oliver Neukum wrote:
> > > Am Sonntag, 17. Januar 2010 14:55:55 schrieb Rafael J. Wysocki:
> > > > +void mm_force_noio_allocations(void)
> > > > +{
> > > > + /* Wait for all slowpath allocations using the old mask to complete */
> > > > + down_write(&gfp_allowed_mask_sem);
> > > > + saved_gfp_allowed_mask = gfp_allowed_mask;
> > > > + gfp_allowed_mask &= ~(__GFP_IO | __GFP_FS);
> > > > + up_write(&gfp_allowed_mask_sem);
> > > > +}
> > >
> > > In addition to this you probably want to exhaust all memory reserves
> > > before you fail a memory allocation
> >
> > I'm not really sure what you mean.
>
> Forget it, it was foolish. Instead there's a different problem.
> Suppose we are tight on memory. The problem is that we must not
> exhaust all memory. If we are really out of memory we may be unable
> to satisfy memory allocations in resume()

That doesn't make things any worse than the are already. If we block on
I/O forever during resume, the gross result is pretty much the same.

That said, Maxim reported that in his test case the mm subsystem apparently
attempted to use I/O even if there was a plenty of free memory available and
I'd like prevent _that_ from happening.

Rafael