Re: [Xen-devel] LVM Snapshot Troubles

[Ian Pratt <Ian.Pratt@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> On Tue, Sep 28, 2004 at 09:06:59PM +0100, Ian Pratt wrote:
> > It might be worth adding "| __GFP_REPEAT" to the alloc_page in 
> > drivers/md/kcopyd.c
> 
> I think that __GFP_REPEAT is a no-op for single-page allocations, as in
> this case (though I haven't tried it).  __GFP_NOFAIL might work, but
> that sounds like a cure worse than the disease.

Yep, you're right. From mm/page_alloc.c:

        if (!(gfp_mask & __GFP_NORETRY)) {
                if ((order <= 3) || (gfp_mask & __GFP_REPEAT))
                        do_retry = 1;
                if (gfp_mask & __GFP_NOFAIL)
                        do_retry = 1;
        }
        if (do_retry) {
                blk_congestion_wait(WRITE, HZ/50);


I think it's worth trying GFP_NOFAIL just to see what happens.
The correct fix is probably to wrap the page_alloc in a loop that
retries a few times, maybe something like:

        unsigned long start = jiffies;

        while( (pl->page = alloc_page(GFP_KERNEL)) == NULL &&
                jiffies - start < 5*HZ )
                blk_congestion_wait(WRITE, HZ/5);


Ian


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