Re: [PATCH] mm: Use GFP_KERNEL allocation for the page cache in page_cache_read

[Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.cz>]

On Wed 18-03-15 14:38:47, Mel Gorman wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 18, 2015 at 03:09:26PM +0100, Michal Hocko wrote:
> > page_cache_read has been historically using page_cache_alloc_cold to
> > allocate a new page. This means that mapping_gfp_mask is used as the
> > base for the gfp_mask. Many filesystems are setting this mask to
> > GFP_NOFS to prevent from fs recursion issues. page_cache_read is,
> > however, not called from the fs layer so it doesn't need this
> > protection. Even ceph and ocfs2 which call filemap_fault from their
> > fault handlers seem to be OK because they are not taking any fs lock
> > before invoking generic implementation.
> > 
> > The protection might be even harmful. There is a strong push to fail
> > GFP_NOFS allocations rather than loop within allocator indefinitely with
> > a very limited reclaim ability. Once we start failing those requests
> > the OOM killer might be triggered prematurely because the page cache
> > allocation failure is propagated up the page fault path and end up in
> > pagefault_out_of_memory.
> > 
> > Use GFP_KERNEL mask instead because it is safe from the reclaim
> > recursion POV. We are already doing GFP_KERNEL allocations down
> > add_to_page_cache_lru path.
> > 
> > Reported-by: Tetsuo Handa <penguin-kernel@I-love.SAKURA.ne.jp>
> > Signed-off-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.cz>
> 
> I'm very far behind after LSF/MM so do not know where this came out of
> but it loses addressing restriction hints from the driver such as
> 
> drivers/gpu/drm/gma500/gem.c: mapping_set_gfp_mask(r->gem.filp->f_mapping, GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_DMA32);

OK, I have missed these drivers. Scratch the patch for now I will think
about it more.

Thanks!
-- 
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs