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Michal Hocko 7dea19f9ee mm: introduce memalloc_nofs_{save,restore} API
GFP_NOFS context is used for the following 5 reasons currently:

 - to prevent from deadlocks when the lock held by the allocation
   context would be needed during the memory reclaim

 - to prevent from stack overflows during the reclaim because the
   allocation is performed from a deep context already

 - to prevent lockups when the allocation context depends on other
   reclaimers to make a forward progress indirectly

 - just in case because this would be safe from the fs POV

 - silence lockdep false positives

Unfortunately overuse of this allocation context brings some problems to
the MM.  Memory reclaim is much weaker (especially during heavy FS
metadata workloads), OOM killer cannot be invoked because the MM layer
doesn't have enough information about how much memory is freeable by the
FS layer.

In many cases it is far from clear why the weaker context is even used
and so it might be used unnecessarily.  We would like to get rid of
those as much as possible.  One way to do that is to use the flag in
scopes rather than isolated cases.  Such a scope is declared when really
necessary, tracked per task and all the allocation requests from within
the context will simply inherit the GFP_NOFS semantic.

Not only this is easier to understand and maintain because there are
much less problematic contexts than specific allocation requests, this
also helps code paths where FS layer interacts with other layers (e.g.
crypto, security modules, MM etc...) and there is no easy way to convey
the allocation context between the layers.

Introduce memalloc_nofs_{save,restore} API to control the scope of
GFP_NOFS allocation context.  This is basically copying
memalloc_noio_{save,restore} API we have for other restricted allocation
context GFP_NOIO.  The PF_MEMALLOC_NOFS flag already exists and it is
just an alias for PF_FSTRANS which has been xfs specific until recently.
There are no more PF_FSTRANS users anymore so let's just drop it.

PF_MEMALLOC_NOFS is now checked in the MM layer and drops __GFP_FS
implicitly same as PF_MEMALLOC_NOIO drops __GFP_IO.  memalloc_noio_flags
is renamed to current_gfp_context because it now cares about both
PF_MEMALLOC_NOFS and PF_MEMALLOC_NOIO contexts.  Xfs code paths preserve
their semantic.  kmem_flags_convert() doesn't need to evaluate the flag
anymore.

This patch shouldn't introduce any functional changes.

Let's hope that filesystems will drop direct GFP_NOFS (resp.  ~__GFP_FS)
usage as much as possible and only use a properly documented
memalloc_nofs_{save,restore} checkpoints where they are appropriate.

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix comment typo, reflow comment]
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20170306131408.9828-5-mhocko@kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com>
Acked-by: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz>
Cc: Dave Chinner <david@fromorbit.com>
Cc: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu>
Cc: Chris Mason <clm@fb.com>
Cc: David Sterba <dsterba@suse.cz>
Cc: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Cc: Brian Foster <bfoster@redhat.com>
Cc: Darrick J. Wong <darrick.wong@oracle.com>
Cc: Nikolay Borisov <nborisov@suse.com>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2017-05-03 15:52:09 -07:00
Documentation mm: memcontrol: provide shmem statistics 2017-05-03 15:52:08 -07:00
arch blackfin: bf609: let clk_disable() return immediately if clk is NULL 2017-05-03 15:52:07 -07:00
block A reasonably busy cycle for documentation this time around. There is a new 2017-05-02 10:21:17 -07:00
certs KEYS: Use structure to capture key restriction function and data 2017-04-04 14:10:10 -07:00
crypto Merge branch 'next' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jmorris/linux-security 2017-05-03 08:50:52 -07:00
drivers Merge branch 'next' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jmorris/linux-security 2017-05-03 08:50:52 -07:00
firmware WHENCE: use https://linuxtv.org for LinuxTV URLs 2015-12-04 10:35:11 -02:00
fs mm: introduce memalloc_nofs_{save,restore} API 2017-05-03 15:52:09 -07:00
include mm: introduce memalloc_nofs_{save,restore} API 2017-05-03 15:52:09 -07:00
init Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jikos/trivial 2017-05-02 19:09:35 -07:00
ipc kernel-api.rst: fix a series of errors when parsing C files 2017-04-02 14:31:49 -06:00
kernel mm: introduce memalloc_nofs_{save,restore} API 2017-05-03 15:52:09 -07:00
lib lockdep: allow to disable reclaim lockup detection 2017-05-03 15:52:09 -07:00
mm mm: introduce memalloc_nofs_{save,restore} API 2017-05-03 15:52:09 -07:00
net Merge branch 'stable-4.12' of git://git.infradead.org/users/pcmoore/audit 2017-05-03 09:21:59 -07:00
samples Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jikos/livepatching 2017-05-02 18:24:16 -07:00
scripts scripts/spelling.txt: add several more common spelling mistakes 2017-05-03 15:52:07 -07:00
security Merge branch 'next' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jmorris/linux-security 2017-05-03 08:50:52 -07:00
sound LED updates for 4.12 2017-05-01 13:12:49 -07:00
tools Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jikos/trivial 2017-05-02 19:09:35 -07:00
usr kbuild: initramfs cleanup, set target from Kconfig 2017-01-05 09:40:16 -08:00
virt KVM/ARM Fixes for v4.11-rc6 2017-04-05 16:27:47 +02:00
.cocciconfig scripts: add Linux .cocciconfig for coccinelle 2016-07-22 12:13:39 +02:00
.get_maintainer.ignore
.gitattributes .gitattributes: set git diff driver for C source code files 2016-10-07 18:46:30 -07:00
.gitignore Merge branch 'misc' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mmarek/kbuild 2016-08-02 16:48:52 -04:00
.mailmap mailmap: add Martin Kepplinger's email 2017-04-13 18:24:21 -07:00
COPYING
CREDITS avr32: remove support for AVR32 architecture 2017-05-01 09:27:15 +02:00
Kbuild scripts/gdb: provide linux constants 2016-05-23 17:04:14 -07:00
Kconfig
MAINTAINERS Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jikos/trivial 2017-05-02 19:09:35 -07:00
Makefile A reasonably busy cycle for documentation this time around. There is a new 2017-05-02 10:21:17 -07:00
README README: add a new README file, pointing to the Documentation/ 2016-10-24 08:12:35 -02:00

README

Linux kernel
============

This file was moved to Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst

Please notice that there are several guides for kernel developers and users.
These guides can be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF.

In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``.

There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the Restructured Text markup notation.
See Documentation/00-INDEX for a list of what is contained in each file.

Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.