Re: [PATCH] debugobjects: add a new Kconfig for POOL_SIZE

[Qian Cai <cai@gmx.us>]

On Mon, 2018-11-19 at 09:51 -0500, Waiman Long wrote:
> On 11/19/2018 08:27 AM, Qian Cai wrote:
> > On 11/19/18 at 3:09 AM, Thomas Gleixner wrote:
> > 
> > > Qian,
> > > 
> > > On Sun, 18 Nov 2018, Qian Cai wrote:
> > > > > On Nov 18, 2018, at 1:21 PM, Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
> > > > > wrote:
> > > > > On Sun, 18 Nov 2018, Qian Cai wrote:
> > > > > > As the results, systems have 60+ CPUs with both timer and workqueue
> > > > > > objects enabled could trigger "ODEBUG: Out of memory. ODEBUG
> > > > > > disabled".
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Hence, add a new Kconfig option so users could adjust
> > > > > > ODEBUG_POOL_SIZE
> > > > > > accordingly if either timer or workqueue objects are selected.
> > > > > 
> > > > > why do we need a config option, when the required number can be
> > > > > deduced
> > > > > already from the active CONFIG_DEBUG_OBJECTS_* and NR_CPUS?
> > > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > It because I am worry about the coupling between the implementation
> > > > details of
> > > > timers and workqueue objects, and the computation in the code you
> > > > mentioned
> > > > here. For example, people could change workqueue.c to have different
> > > > number
> > > > of worekqueues initialized during the early boot in the future which is
> > > > going to
> > > > affect the required pool size, and I am not sure if people are going to
> > > > adjust the
> > > > code in debugobjects.c here as well when they made changes like that.
> > > > 
> > > > Also, the computation could become so complex depends on lots of config
> > > > options like perf, hrtimer, and combinations that I have not tested so
> > > > far which is
> > > > difficult to exhausted all the possibilities.
> > > > 
> > > > Hence, I feel like the Kconfig option is more flexible and less error-
> > > > prone.
> > > 
> > > Quite the contrary. Config options are a pain and truly error-prone if you
> > > want to compile general purpose kernels as distributions do.
> > > 
> > 
> > Ah, I never thought distributions people would
> > enable those debugging options.
> 
> Distros like RHEL usually ship two kernels - one for production and one
> for debug. The debug kernel does have debugobjects enabled.
> 
Right, I can remember that now . However, if I understand correctly, since the
early static pool size needs to be determined during the compilation time, it
depends on the No. CPUs are from the machines that built the distro kernels.
Then, when users use those distro kernels, they are not going to have correct
the pool size according to the No. CPUs on their test machines.