From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1754077AbdEQIKJ (ORCPT ); Wed, 17 May 2017 04:10:09 -0400 Received: from mail-wr0-f193.google.com ([209.85.128.193]:35777 "EHLO mail-wr0-f193.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753902AbdEQIJp (ORCPT ); Wed, 17 May 2017 04:09:45 -0400 From: Michal Hocko To: Andrew Morton Cc: Chris Wilson , Vlastimil Babka , , LKML , Michal Hocko Subject: [PATCH] mm: clarify why we want kmalloc before falling backto vmallock Date: Wed, 17 May 2017 10:09:32 +0200 Message-Id: <20170517080932.21423-1-mhocko@kernel.org> X-Mailer: git-send-email 2.11.0 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org From: Michal Hocko While converting drm_[cm]alloc* helpers to kvmalloc* variants Chris Wilson has wondered why we want to try kmalloc before vmalloc fallback even for larger allocations requests. Let's clarify that one larger physically contiguous block is less likely to fragment memory than many scattered pages which can prevent more large blocks from being created. Suggested-by: Chris Wilson Signed-off-by: Michal Hocko --- mm/util.c | 5 ++++- 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/mm/util.c b/mm/util.c index 464df3489903..87499f8119f2 100644 --- a/mm/util.c +++ b/mm/util.c @@ -357,7 +357,10 @@ void *kvmalloc_node(size_t size, gfp_t flags, int node) WARN_ON_ONCE((flags & GFP_KERNEL) != GFP_KERNEL); /* - * Make sure that larger requests are not too disruptive - no OOM + * We want to attempt a large physically contiguous block first because + * it is less likely to fragment multiple larger blocks and therefore + * contribute to a long term fragmentation less than vmalloc fallback. + * However make sure that larger requests are not too disruptive - no OOM * killer and no allocation failure warnings as we have a fallback */ if (size > PAGE_SIZE) { -- 2.11.0