Re: [PATCH 0/2] /proc/stat vs. failed order-4 allocation

[David Rientjes <rientjes@google.com>]

On Mon, 23 Jun 2014, Andrew Morton wrote:

> On Sat, 21 Jun 2014 11:10:58 +0200 Heiko Carstens <heiko.carstens@de.ibm.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 02:29:31PM -0700, Andrew Morton wrote:
> > > On Mon, 16 Jun 2014 11:04:50 +0200 Heiko Carstens <heiko.carstens@de.ibm.com> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > These two patches are supposed to "fix" failed order-4 memory
> > > > allocations which have been observed when reading /proc/stat.
> > > > The problem has been observed on s390 as well as on x86.
> > > > 
> > > > To address the problem change the seq_file memory allocations to
> > > > fallback to use vmalloc, so that allocations also work if memory
> > > > is fragmented.
> > > > 
> > > > This approach seems to be simpler and less intrusive than changing
> > > > /proc/stat to use an interator. Also it "fixes" other users as well,
> > > > which use seq_file's single_open() interface.
> > > 
> > > Yes, those changes look pretty simple and effective.
> > > 
> > > I'm unclear on how urgent these fixes are.  I semi-randomly tagged them
> > > for 3.16 with a -stable backport, but that could be changed?
> > 
> > I assume tagged for 3.16 means you intend to get it merged before 3.16
> > gets released?
> > If so, then that would be fine with me.
> 
> um, actually, no, sorry, I meant merge for 3.17-rc1 with a -stable backport.
> 
> We can do 3.16 of course, but for what reasons?
> 

Heiko's patches should also fix 
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1319244 as reported 
by Stefan Bader.  I've pinged them to determine if there is any other 
issues with -mm.