Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:21:44 -0400 | From | Jeff Garzik <> | Subject | Re: GFP_ATOMIC page allocation failures. |
| |
Andrew Morton wrote: > The appropriate thing to do here is to convert known-good drivers (such as > e1000[e]) to use __GFP_NOWARN. > > Unfortunately netdev_alloc_skb() went and assumed GFP_ATOMIC, but I guess > we can dive below the covers and use __netdev_alloc_skb(): > > > > From: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> > > We get rather a lot of reports of page allocation warnings coming out of > e1000. But this driver is know to handle them properly so let's suppress > them.
Do you people hear what you're saying???
I respectfully but strongly disagree with this.
We do __not__ need a whitelist (__GFP_NOWARN) of drivers that handle allocation failures properly. That's a long list, a maintenance nightmare, and it is punishing good behavior.
It has been true for over a decade that allocations should be checked for NULL, and GFP_ATOMIC allocations MUST be checked for NULL.
Let's not crap all over good drivers, because a few bad apples don't have the proper checks.
Or at the very least, this TOTALLY BOGUS spew from working drivers should not be foisted upon users. Every time a working driver complains about this -- as in the examples here -- the value of the warning decreases to noise.
And the solution to noise is not _more noise_ (adding 'nowarn' to every damn driver in the kernel).
Jeff
| |