Re: [PATCH] SLUB: Don't drop __GFP_NOFAIL completely from allocate_slab() (was: Re: [Bug #14265] ifconfig: page allocation failure. order:5,ode:0x8020 w/ e100)

Karol Lewandowski
2009-10-22T21:33:55Z

On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 11:20:14AM +0100, Mel Gorman wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 11:20:34PM +0200, Karol Lewandowski wrote:
> > > Note: slub isn't going to be a culprit in order 5 allocation failures
> > > since they have kmalloc passthrough to the page allocator.
> >
> > However, it might change fragmentation somewhat I guess. This might
> > make problem more/less visible.
> >
>
> Did you have CONFIG_KMEMCHECK set by any chance?

No, kmemcheck (and kmemleak) was always disabled.

It's likely that's possible to trigger allocation failures with slab,
I just haven't been successful at it. Lack of good testcase is really
problem here -- even if I can't trigger failures I can never be sure
that these wont appear in some strange moment.

BTW I'll test your patches (from another thread) shortly.

Thanks.