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[PATCH] mm: clarify why we want kmalloc before falling backto vmallock

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From: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com>

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 <chris@chris-wilson.co.uk>
Signed-off-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com>
---
 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

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[PATCH] mm: clarify why we want kmalloc before falling backto vmallock Michal Hocko <mhocko@kernel.org> - 2017-05-17 10:20 +0200
  Re: [PATCH] mm: clarify why we want kmalloc before falling backto  vmallock Chris Wilson <chris@chris-wilson.co.uk> - 2017-05-17 15:10 +0200
  Re: [PATCH] mm: clarify why we want kmalloc before falling backto  vmallock Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz> - 2017-05-18 16:10 +0200
  Re: [PATCH] mm: clarify why we want kmalloc before falling backto  vmallock John Hubbard <jhubbard@nvidia.com> - 2017-05-20 02:50 +0200
    Re: [PATCH] mm: clarify why we want kmalloc before falling backto  vmallock Michal Hocko <mhocko@kernel.org> - 2017-05-20 09:30 +0200

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