From: Michal Hocko Date: Mon, 2 Mar 2026 11:47:40 +0000 (+0100) Subject: vmalloc: support __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL and __GFP_NORETRY X-Git-Url: http://git.ipfire.org/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=3caedb3b99eabe9f67b7b6c704ab8a92fe35dcec;p=thirdparty%2Fkernel%2Flinux.git vmalloc: support __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL and __GFP_NORETRY __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL and __GFP_NORETRY haven't been supported so far because their semantic (i.e. to not trigger OOM killer) is not possible with the existing vmalloc page table allocation which is allowing for the OOM killer. Example: __vmalloc(size, GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL); vmalloc_test/55 invoked oom-killer: gfp_mask=0x40dc0( GFP_KERNEL|__GFP_ZERO|__GFP_COMP), order=0, oom_score_adj=0 active_anon:0 inactive_anon:0 isolated_anon:0 active_file:0 inactive_file:0 isolated_file:0 unevictable:0 dirty:0 writeback:0 slab_reclaimable:700 slab_unreclaimable:33708 mapped:0 shmem:0 pagetables:5174 sec_pagetables:0 bounce:0 kernel_misc_reclaimable:0 free:850 free_pcp:319 free_cma:0 CPU: 4 UID: 0 PID: 639 Comm: vmalloc_test/55 ... Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, ... Call Trace: dump_stack_lvl+0x5d/0x80 dump_header+0x43/0x1b3 out_of_memory.cold+0x8/0x78 __alloc_pages_slowpath.constprop.0+0xef5/0x1130 __alloc_frozen_pages_noprof+0x312/0x330 alloc_pages_mpol+0x7d/0x160 alloc_pages_noprof+0x50/0xa0 __pte_alloc_kernel+0x1e/0x1f0 ... There are usecases for these modifiers when a large allocation request should rather fail than trigger OOM killer which wouldn't be able to handle the situation anyway [1]. While we cannot change existing page table allocation code easily we can piggy back on scoped NOWAIT allocation for them that we already have in place. The rationale is that the bulk of the consumed memory is sitting in pages backing the vmalloc allocation. Page tables are only participating a tiny fraction. Moreover page tables for virtually allocated areas are never reclaimed so the longer the system runs to less likely they are. It makes sense to allow an approximation of __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL and __GFP_NORETRY even if the page table allocation part is much weaker. This doesn't break the failure mode while it allows for the no OOM semantic. [1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/32bd9bed-a939-69c4-696d-f7f9a5fe31d8@redhat.com/T/#u Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20260302114740.2668450-2-urezki@gmail.com Signed-off-by: Michal Hocko Signed-off-by: Uladzislau Rezki (Sony) Tested-by: Uladzislau Rezki (Sony) Cc: Baoquan He Cc: Mikulas Patocka Cc: Vishal Moola (Oracle) Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton --- diff --git a/mm/vmalloc.c b/mm/vmalloc.c index 634d8c782ccae..c607307c657a6 100644 --- a/mm/vmalloc.c +++ b/mm/vmalloc.c @@ -3797,6 +3797,8 @@ static void defer_vm_area_cleanup(struct vm_struct *area) * non-blocking (no __GFP_DIRECT_RECLAIM) - memalloc_noreclaim_save() * GFP_NOFS - memalloc_nofs_save() * GFP_NOIO - memalloc_noio_save() + * __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL, __GFP_NORETRY - memalloc_noreclaim_save() + * to prevent OOMs * * Returns a flag cookie to pair with restore. */ @@ -3805,7 +3807,8 @@ memalloc_apply_gfp_scope(gfp_t gfp_mask) { unsigned int flags = 0; - if (!gfpflags_allow_blocking(gfp_mask)) + if (!gfpflags_allow_blocking(gfp_mask) || + (gfp_mask & (__GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL | __GFP_NORETRY))) flags = memalloc_noreclaim_save(); else if ((gfp_mask & (__GFP_FS | __GFP_IO)) == __GFP_IO) flags = memalloc_nofs_save(); @@ -3933,7 +3936,8 @@ fail: * GFP_KERNEL_ACCOUNT. Xfs uses __GFP_NOLOCKDEP. */ #define GFP_VMALLOC_SUPPORTED (GFP_KERNEL | GFP_ATOMIC | GFP_NOWAIT |\ - __GFP_NOFAIL | __GFP_ZERO | __GFP_NORETRY |\ + __GFP_NOFAIL | __GFP_ZERO |\ + __GFP_NORETRY | __GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL |\ GFP_NOFS | GFP_NOIO | GFP_KERNEL_ACCOUNT |\ GFP_USER | __GFP_NOLOCKDEP) @@ -3964,12 +3968,15 @@ static gfp_t vmalloc_fix_flags(gfp_t flags) * virtual range with protection @prot. * * Supported GFP classes: %GFP_KERNEL, %GFP_ATOMIC, %GFP_NOWAIT, - * %GFP_NOFS and %GFP_NOIO. Zone modifiers are not supported. + * %__GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL, %__GFP_NORETRY, %GFP_NOFS and %GFP_NOIO. + * Zone modifiers are not supported. * Please note %GFP_ATOMIC and %GFP_NOWAIT are supported only * by __vmalloc(). * - * Retry modifiers: only %__GFP_NOFAIL is supported; %__GFP_NORETRY - * and %__GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL are not supported. + * Retry modifiers: only %__GFP_NOFAIL is fully supported; + * %__GFP_NORETRY and %__GFP_RETRY_MAYFAIL are supported with limitation, + * i.e. page tables are allocated with NOWAIT semantic so they might fail + * under moderate memory pressure. * * %__GFP_NOWARN can be used to suppress failure messages. *