Re: GFP_ATOMIC page allocation failures.

Peter Zijlstra
2008-04-02T11:05:37Z

On Wed, 2008-04-02 at 01:24 -0700, David Miller wrote:
> From: KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@jp.fujitsu.com>
> Date: Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:17:50 +0900
>
> > if network guys hope known-good driver should call
> > __netdev_alloc_skb(dev, length, GFP_ATOMIC|__GFP_NOWARN) instead netdev_alloc_skb,
> > I think we should make netdev_alloc_skb_nowarn.
>
> Giving it a proper name like this takes away the indication that this
> situation is very special.
>
> Two leading underscores to an interface means "something special and
> unusual requiring more careful consideration than usual is occuring
> here." netdev_alloc_skb_nowarn() on the other hand, does not
> convey this meaning.
>
> And we will have very few drivers that use this construct, thus it
> really is best to handle things the way Andrew has.

Would we not hope that most net drivers can handle {,net}dev_alloc_skb()
failing? Otherwise we have some serious trouble.