[PATCH 3.2 100/149] powerpc/iommu: Use GFP_KERNEL instead ofGFP_ATOMIC in iommu_init_table()

From: Ben Hutchings
Date: Mon Oct 21 2013 - 05:09:39 EST


3.2.52-rc1 review patch. If anyone has any objections, please let me know.

------------------

From: Nishanth Aravamudan <nacc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

commit 1cf389df090194a0976dc867b7fffe99d9d490cb upstream.

Under heavy (DLPAR?) stress, we tripped this panic() in
arch/powerpc/kernel/iommu.c::iommu_init_table():

page = alloc_pages_node(nid, GFP_ATOMIC, get_order(sz));
if (!page)
panic("iommu_init_table: Can't allocate %ld bytes\n", sz);

Before the panic() we got a page allocation failure for an order-2
allocation. There appears to be memory free, but perhaps not in the
ATOMIC context. I looked through all the call-sites of
iommu_init_table() and didn't see any obvious reason to need an ATOMIC
allocation. Most call-sites in fact have an explicit GFP_KERNEL
allocation shortly before the call to iommu_init_table(), indicating we
are not in an atomic context. There is some indirection for some paths,
but I didn't see any locks indicating that GFP_KERNEL is inappropriate.

With this change under the same conditions, we have not been able to
reproduce the panic.

Signed-off-by: Nishanth Aravamudan <nacc@xxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Ben Hutchings <ben@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
arch/powerpc/kernel/iommu.c | 2 +-
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

--- a/arch/powerpc/kernel/iommu.c
+++ b/arch/powerpc/kernel/iommu.c
@@ -495,7 +495,7 @@ struct iommu_table *iommu_init_table(str
/* number of bytes needed for the bitmap */
sz = (tbl->it_size + 7) >> 3;

- page = alloc_pages_node(nid, GFP_ATOMIC, get_order(sz));
+ page = alloc_pages_node(nid, GFP_KERNEL, get_order(sz));
if (!page)
panic("iommu_init_table: Can't allocate %ld bytes\n", sz);
tbl->it_map = page_address(page);

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