Linux kernel mirror (for testing) git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git
kernel os linux

sparc: clarify __GFP_NOFAIL allocation

Commit 920c3ed74134 ("[SPARC64]: Add basic infrastructure for MD
add/remove notification") has added __GFP_NOFAIL for the allocation
request but it hasn't mentioned why is this strict requirement really
needed. The code was handling an allocation failure and propagated it
properly up the callchain so it is not clear why it is needed.

Dave has clarified the intention when I tried to remove the flag as not
being necessary:

: It is a serious failure.
:
: If we miss an MDESC update due to this allocation failure, the update
: is not an event which gets retransmitted so we will lose the updated
: machine description forever.
:
: We really need this allocation to succeed.

So add a comment to clarify the nofail flag and get rid of the failure
check because __GFP_NOFAIL allocation doesn't fail.

Signed-off-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.cz>
Cc: David Rientjes <rientjes@google.com>
Cc: Johannes Weiner <hannes@cmpxchg.org>
Cc: Dave Chinner <david@fromorbit.com>
Cc: "Theodore Ts'o" <tytso@mit.edu>
Cc: Mel Gorman <mgorman@suse.de>
Cc: Tetsuo Handa <penguin-kernel@I-love.SAKURA.ne.jp>
Cc: "David S. Miller" <davem@davemloft.net>
Cc: Vipul Pandya <vipul@chelsio.com>
Cc: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>

authored by

Michal Hocko and committed by
Linus Torvalds
f91e8d6d 64775719

+11 -11
+11 -11
arch/sparc/kernel/mdesc.c
··· 130 130 static struct mdesc_handle *mdesc_kmalloc(unsigned int mdesc_size) 131 131 { 132 132 unsigned int handle_size; 133 + struct mdesc_handle *hp; 134 + unsigned long addr; 133 135 void *base; 134 136 135 137 handle_size = (sizeof(struct mdesc_handle) - 136 138 sizeof(struct mdesc_hdr) + 137 139 mdesc_size); 138 140 141 + /* 142 + * Allocation has to succeed because mdesc update would be missed 143 + * and such events are not retransmitted. 144 + */ 139 145 base = kmalloc(handle_size + 15, GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_NOFAIL); 140 - if (base) { 141 - struct mdesc_handle *hp; 142 - unsigned long addr; 146 + addr = (unsigned long)base; 147 + addr = (addr + 15UL) & ~15UL; 148 + hp = (struct mdesc_handle *) addr; 143 149 144 - addr = (unsigned long)base; 145 - addr = (addr + 15UL) & ~15UL; 146 - hp = (struct mdesc_handle *) addr; 150 + mdesc_handle_init(hp, handle_size, base); 147 151 148 - mdesc_handle_init(hp, handle_size, base); 149 - return hp; 150 - } 151 - 152 - return NULL; 152 + return hp; 153 153 } 154 154 155 155 static void mdesc_kfree(struct mdesc_handle *hp)