Re: [Intel-gfx] [PATCH 2/5] kernel.h: Add non_block_start/end()

Michal Hocko
2019-08-16T08:27:43Z

On Thu 15-08-19 22:16:43, Daniel Vetter wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 15, 2019 at 9:35 PM Michal Hocko <mhocko@kernel.org> wrote:
[...]
> > > The last detail is I'm still unclear what a GFP flags a blockable
> > > invalidate_range_start() should use. Is GFP_KERNEL OK?
> >
> > I hope I will not make this muddy again ;)
> > invalidate_range_start in the blockable mode can use/depend on any sleepable
> > allocation allowed in the context it is called from. So in other words
> > it is no different from any other function in the kernel that calls into
> > allocator. As the API is missing gfp context then I hope it is not
> > called from any restricted contexts (except from the oom which we have
> > !blockable for).
>
> Hm, that's new to me. I thought mmu notifiers very much can be called
> from direct reclaim paths, so you have to be extremely careful with
> getting back into that one.

Correct, I should have added that notifier callbacks ideally do not
allocate any memory. They can block and even that is quite a pain to be
honest.
--
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs