On Thu, Jul 28 2016, Michal Hocko wrote:

> On Wed 27-07-16 13:43:35, NeilBrown wrote:
>> On Mon, Jul 25 2016, Michal Hocko wrote:
>> 
>> > On Sat 23-07-16 10:12:24, NeilBrown wrote:
> [...]
>> So should there be a limit on dirty
>> pages in the swap cache just like there is for dirty pages in any
>> filesystem (the max_dirty_ratio thing) ??
>> Maybe there is?
>
> There is no limit AFAIK. We are relying that the reclaim is throttled
> when necessary.

Is that a bit indirect?  It is hard to tell without a clear big-picture.
Something to keep in mind anyway.

>
>> I think we'd end up with cleaner code if we removed the cute-hacks.  And
>> we'd be able to use 6 more GFP flags!!  (though I do wonder if we really
>> need all those 26).
>
> Well, maybe we are able to remove those hacks, I wouldn't definitely
> be opposed.  But right now I am not even convinced that the mempool
> specific gfp flags is the right way to go.

I'm not suggesting a mempool-specific gfp flag.  I'm suggesting a
transient-allocation gfp flag, which would be quite useful for mempool.

Can you give more details on why using a gfp flag isn't your first choice
for guiding what happens when the system is trying to get a free page
:-?

Thanks,
NeilBrown