[PATCH 7/7] xfs: Don't use PF_MEMALLOC

KOSAKI Motohiro kosaki.motohiro at jp.fujitsu.com
Wed Nov 18 02:56:46 CST 2009


> On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 04:23:43PM +0900, KOSAKI Motohiro wrote:
> > 
> > Non MM subsystem must not use PF_MEMALLOC. Memory reclaim need few
> > memory, anyone must not prevent it. Otherwise the system cause
> > mysterious hang-up and/or OOM Killer invokation.
> 
> The xfsbufd is a woken run by a registered memory shaker. i.e. it
> runs when the system needs to reclaim memory. It forceѕ the
> delayed write metadata buffers (of which there can be a lot) to disk
> so that they can be reclaimed on IO completion. This IO submission
> may require ѕome memory to be allocated to be able to free that
> memory.
> 
> Hence, AFAICT the use of PF_MEMALLOC is valid here.

Thanks a lot. 
I have one additional question, may I ask you?

How can we calculate maximum memory usage in xfsbufd?
I'm afraid that VM and XFS works properly but adding two makes memory exhaust.

And, I conclude XFS doesn't need sharing reservation memory with VM,
it only need non failed allocation. right? IOW I'm prefer perter's
suggestion.





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