Revision 0ee931c4e31a5efb134c76440405e9219f896e33 authored by Michal Hocko on 13 September 2017, 23:28:29 UTC, committed by Linus Torvalds on 14 September 2017, 01:53:16 UTC
GFP_TEMPORARY was introduced by commit e12ba74d8ff3 ("Group short-lived
and reclaimable kernel allocations") along with __GFP_RECLAIMABLE.  It's
primary motivation was to allow users to tell that an allocation is
short lived and so the allocator can try to place such allocations close
together and prevent long term fragmentation.  As much as this sounds
like a reasonable semantic it becomes much less clear when to use the
highlevel GFP_TEMPORARY allocation flag.  How long is temporary? Can the
context holding that memory sleep? Can it take locks? It seems there is
no good answer for those questions.

The current implementation of GFP_TEMPORARY is basically GFP_KERNEL |
__GFP_RECLAIMABLE which in itself is tricky because basically none of
the existing caller provide a way to reclaim the allocated memory.  So
this is rather misleading and hard to evaluate for any benefits.

I have checked some random users and none of them has added the flag
with a specific justification.  I suspect most of them just copied from
other existing users and others just thought it might be a good idea to
use without any measuring.  This suggests that GFP_TEMPORARY just
motivates for cargo cult usage without any reasoning.

I believe that our gfp flags are quite complex already and especially
those with highlevel semantic should be clearly defined to prevent from
confusion and abuse.  Therefore I propose dropping GFP_TEMPORARY and
replace all existing users to simply use GFP_KERNEL.  Please note that
SLAB users with shrinkers will still get __GFP_RECLAIMABLE heuristic and
so they will be placed properly for memory fragmentation prevention.

I can see reasons we might want some gfp flag to reflect shorterm
allocations but I propose starting from a clear semantic definition and
only then add users with proper justification.

This was been brought up before LSF this year by Matthew [1] and it
turned out that GFP_TEMPORARY really doesn't have a clear semantic.  It
seems to be a heuristic without any measured advantage for most (if not
all) its current users.  The follow up discussion has revealed that
opinions on what might be temporary allocation differ a lot between
developers.  So rather than trying to tweak existing users into a
semantic which they haven't expected I propose to simply remove the flag
and start from scratch if we really need a semantic for short term
allocations.

[1] http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20170118054945.GD18349@bombadil.infradead.org

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix typo]
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: coding-style fixes]
[sfr@canb.auug.org.au: drm/i915: fix up]
  Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20170816144703.378d4f4d@canb.auug.org.au
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20170728091904.14627-1-mhocko@kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com>
Signed-off-by: Stephen Rothwell <sfr@canb.auug.org.au>
Acked-by: Mel Gorman <mgorman@suse.de>
Acked-by: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz>
Cc: Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org>
Cc: Neil Brown <neilb@suse.de>
Cc: "Theodore Ts'o" <tytso@mit.edu>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
1 parent d0dbf77
Raw File
merge_config.sh
#!/bin/sh
#  merge_config.sh - Takes a list of config fragment values, and merges
#  them one by one. Provides warnings on overridden values, and specified
#  values that did not make it to the resulting .config file (due to missed
#  dependencies or config symbol removal).
#
#  Portions reused from kconf_check and generate_cfg:
#  http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/yocto-kernel-tools/tree/tools/kconf_check
#  http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/yocto-kernel-tools/tree/tools/generate_cfg
#
#  Copyright (c) 2009-2010 Wind River Systems, Inc.
#  Copyright 2011 Linaro
#
#  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
#  it under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 as
#  published by the Free Software Foundation.
#
#  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
#  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
#  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
#  See the GNU General Public License for more details.

clean_up() {
	rm -f $TMP_FILE
	exit
}
trap clean_up HUP INT TERM

usage() {
	echo "Usage: $0 [OPTIONS] [CONFIG [...]]"
	echo "  -h    display this help text"
	echo "  -m    only merge the fragments, do not execute the make command"
	echo "  -n    use allnoconfig instead of alldefconfig"
	echo "  -r    list redundant entries when merging fragments"
	echo "  -O    dir to put generated output files.  Consider setting \$KCONFIG_CONFIG instead."
}

RUNMAKE=true
ALLTARGET=alldefconfig
WARNREDUN=false
OUTPUT=.

while true; do
	case $1 in
	"-n")
		ALLTARGET=allnoconfig
		shift
		continue
		;;
	"-m")
		RUNMAKE=false
		shift
		continue
		;;
	"-h")
		usage
		exit
		;;
	"-r")
		WARNREDUN=true
		shift
		continue
		;;
	"-O")
		if [ -d $2 ];then
			OUTPUT=$(echo $2 | sed 's/\/*$//')
		else
			echo "output directory $2 does not exist" 1>&2
			exit 1
		fi
		shift 2
		continue
		;;
	*)
		break
		;;
	esac
done

if [ "$#" -lt 1 ] ; then
	usage
	exit
fi

if [ -z "$KCONFIG_CONFIG" ]; then
	if [ "$OUTPUT" != . ]; then
		KCONFIG_CONFIG=$(readlink -m -- "$OUTPUT/.config")
	else
		KCONFIG_CONFIG=.config
	fi
fi

INITFILE=$1
shift;

if [ ! -r "$INITFILE" ]; then
	echo "The base file '$INITFILE' does not exist.  Exit." >&2
	exit 1
fi

MERGE_LIST=$*
SED_CONFIG_EXP="s/^\(# \)\{0,1\}\(CONFIG_[a-zA-Z0-9_]*\)[= ].*/\2/p"
TMP_FILE=$(mktemp ./.tmp.config.XXXXXXXXXX)

echo "Using $INITFILE as base"
cat $INITFILE > $TMP_FILE

# Merge files, printing warnings on overridden values
for MERGE_FILE in $MERGE_LIST ; do
	echo "Merging $MERGE_FILE"
	if [ ! -r "$MERGE_FILE" ]; then
		echo "The merge file '$MERGE_FILE' does not exist.  Exit." >&2
		exit 1
	fi
	CFG_LIST=$(sed -n "$SED_CONFIG_EXP" $MERGE_FILE)

	for CFG in $CFG_LIST ; do
		grep -q -w $CFG $TMP_FILE || continue
		PREV_VAL=$(grep -w $CFG $TMP_FILE)
		NEW_VAL=$(grep -w $CFG $MERGE_FILE)
		if [ "x$PREV_VAL" != "x$NEW_VAL" ] ; then
			echo Value of $CFG is redefined by fragment $MERGE_FILE:
			echo Previous  value: $PREV_VAL
			echo New value:       $NEW_VAL
			echo
		elif [ "$WARNREDUN" = "true" ]; then
			echo Value of $CFG is redundant by fragment $MERGE_FILE:
		fi
		sed -i "/$CFG[ =]/d" $TMP_FILE
	done
	cat $MERGE_FILE >> $TMP_FILE
done

if [ "$RUNMAKE" = "false" ]; then
	cp -T -- "$TMP_FILE" "$KCONFIG_CONFIG"
	echo "#"
	echo "# merged configuration written to $KCONFIG_CONFIG (needs make)"
	echo "#"
	clean_up
	exit
fi

# If we have an output dir, setup the O= argument, otherwise leave
# it blank, since O=. will create an unnecessary ./source softlink
OUTPUT_ARG=""
if [ "$OUTPUT" != "." ] ; then
	OUTPUT_ARG="O=$OUTPUT"
fi


# Use the merged file as the starting point for:
# alldefconfig: Fills in any missing symbols with Kconfig default
# allnoconfig: Fills in any missing symbols with # CONFIG_* is not set
make KCONFIG_ALLCONFIG=$TMP_FILE $OUTPUT_ARG $ALLTARGET


# Check all specified config values took (might have missed-dependency issues)
for CFG in $(sed -n "$SED_CONFIG_EXP" $TMP_FILE); do

	REQUESTED_VAL=$(grep -w -e "$CFG" $TMP_FILE)
	ACTUAL_VAL=$(grep -w -e "$CFG" "$KCONFIG_CONFIG")
	if [ "x$REQUESTED_VAL" != "x$ACTUAL_VAL" ] ; then
		echo "Value requested for $CFG not in final .config"
		echo "Requested value:  $REQUESTED_VAL"
		echo "Actual value:     $ACTUAL_VAL"
		echo ""
	fi
done

clean_up
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