Revision 72853e2991a2702ae93aaf889ac7db743a415dd3 authored by Mel Gorman on 09 September 2010, 23:38:16 UTC, committed by Linus Torvalds on 10 September 2010, 01:57:25 UTC
When allocating a page, the system uses NR_FREE_PAGES counters to
determine if watermarks would remain intact after the allocation was made.
This check is made without interrupts disabled or the zone lock held and
so is race-prone by nature.  Unfortunately, when pages are being freed in
batch, the counters are updated before the pages are added on the list.
During this window, the counters are misleading as the pages do not exist
yet.  When under significant pressure on systems with large numbers of
CPUs, it's possible for processes to make progress even though they should
have been stalled.  This is particularly problematic if a number of the
processes are using GFP_ATOMIC as the min watermark can be accidentally
breached and in extreme cases, the system can livelock.

This patch updates the counters after the pages have been added to the
list.  This makes the allocator more cautious with respect to preserving
the watermarks and mitigates livelock possibilities.

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: avoid modifying incoming args]
Signed-off-by: Mel Gorman <mel@csn.ul.ie>
Reviewed-by: Rik van Riel <riel@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: Minchan Kim <minchan.kim@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@jp.fujitsu.com>
Reviewed-by: Christoph Lameter <cl@linux.com>
Reviewed-by: KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@jp.fujitsu.com>
Acked-by: Johannes Weiner <hannes@cmpxchg.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
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#
# This list is used by git-shortlog to fix a few botched name translations
# in the git archive, either because the author's full name was messed up
# and/or not always written the same way, making contributions from the
# same person appearing not to be so or badly displayed.
#
# repo-abbrev: /pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/
#

Aaron Durbin <adurbin@google.com>
Adam Oldham <oldhamca@gmail.com>
Adam Radford <aradford@gmail.com>
Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
Alan Cox <root@hraefn.swansea.linux.org.uk>
Aleksey Gorelov <aleksey_gorelov@phoenix.com>
Al Viro <viro@ftp.linux.org.uk>
Al Viro <viro@zenIV.linux.org.uk>
Andreas Herrmann <aherrman@de.ibm.com>
Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Andrew Vasquez <andrew.vasquez@qlogic.com>
Andy Adamson <andros@citi.umich.edu>
Arnaud Patard <arnaud.patard@rtp-net.org>
Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>
Axel Dyks <xl@xlsigned.net>
Ben Gardner <bgardner@wabtec.com>
Ben M Cahill <ben.m.cahill@intel.com>
Björn Steinbrink <B.Steinbrink@gmx.de>
Brian Avery <b.avery@hp.com>
Brian King <brking@us.ibm.com>
Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
Corey Minyard <minyard@acm.org>
David Brownell <david-b@pacbell.net>
David Woodhouse <dwmw2@shinybook.infradead.org>
Dmitry Eremin-Solenikov <dbaryshkov@gmail.com>
Domen Puncer <domen@coderock.org>
Douglas Gilbert <dougg@torque.net>
Ed L. Cashin <ecashin@coraid.com>
Evgeniy Polyakov <johnpol@2ka.mipt.ru>
Felipe W Damasio <felipewd@terra.com.br>
Felix Kuhling <fxkuehl@gmx.de>
Felix Moeller <felix@derklecks.de>
Filipe Lautert <filipe@icewall.org>
Franck Bui-Huu <vagabon.xyz@gmail.com>
Frank Zago <fzago@systemfabricworks.com>
Greg Kroah-Hartman <greg@echidna.(none)>
Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
Greg Kroah-Hartman <greg@kroah.com>
Henk Vergonet <Henk.Vergonet@gmail.com>
Henrik Kretzschmar <henne@nachtwindheim.de>
Herbert Xu <herbert@gondor.apana.org.au>
Jacob Shin <Jacob.Shin@amd.com>
James Bottomley <jejb@mulgrave.(none)>
James Bottomley <jejb@titanic.il.steeleye.com>
James E Wilson <wilson@specifix.com>
James Ketrenos <jketreno@io.(none)>
Jean Tourrilhes <jt@hpl.hp.com>
Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@pretzel.yyz.us>
Jens Axboe <axboe@suse.de>
Jens Osterkamp <Jens.Osterkamp@de.ibm.com>
John Stultz <johnstul@us.ibm.com>
Juha Yrjola <at solidboot.com>
Juha Yrjola <juha.yrjola@nokia.com>
Juha Yrjola <juha.yrjola@solidboot.com>
Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@vrfy.org>
Kenneth W Chen <kenneth.w.chen@intel.com>
Koushik <raghavendra.koushik@neterion.com>
Leonid I Ananiev <leonid.i.ananiev@intel.com>
Linas Vepstas <linas@austin.ibm.com>
Mark Brown <broonie@sirena.org.uk>
Matthieu CASTET <castet.matthieu@free.fr>
Michael Buesch <mb@bu3sch.de>
Michael Buesch <mbuesch@freenet.de>
Michel Dänzer <michel@tungstengraphics.com>
Mitesh shah <mshah@teja.com>
Morten Welinder <terra@gnome.org>
Morten Welinder <welinder@anemone.rentec.com>
Morten Welinder <welinder@darter.rentec.com>
Morten Welinder <welinder@troll.com>
Nguyen Anh Quynh <aquynh@gmail.com>
Paolo 'Blaisorblade' Giarrusso <blaisorblade@yahoo.it>
Patrick Mochel <mochel@digitalimplant.org>
Peter A Jonsson <pj@ludd.ltu.se>
Peter Oruba <peter@oruba.de>
Peter Oruba <peter.oruba@amd.com>
Praveen BP <praveenbp@ti.com>
Rajesh Shah <rajesh.shah@intel.com>
Ralf Baechle <ralf@linux-mips.org>
Ralf Wildenhues <Ralf.Wildenhues@gmx.de>
Rémi Denis-Courmont <rdenis@simphalempin.com>
Rudolf Marek <R.Marek@sh.cvut.cz>
Rui Saraiva <rmps@joel.ist.utl.pt>
Sachin P Sant <ssant@in.ibm.com>
Sam Ravnborg <sam@mars.ravnborg.org>
Sascha Hauer <s.hauer@pengutronix.de>
S.Çağlar Onur <caglar@pardus.org.tr>
Simon Kelley <simon@thekelleys.org.uk>
Stéphane Witzmann <stephane.witzmann@ubpmes.univ-bpclermont.fr>
Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@osdl.org>
Tejun Heo <htejun@gmail.com>
Thomas Graf <tgraf@suug.ch>
Tony Luck <tony.luck@intel.com>
Tsuneo Yoshioka <Tsuneo.Yoshioka@f-secure.com>
Uwe Kleine-König <ukleinek@informatik.uni-freiburg.de>
Uwe Kleine-König <ukl@pengutronix.de>
Uwe Kleine-König <Uwe.Kleine-Koenig@digi.com>
Valdis Kletnieks <Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu>
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