Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S265658AbUAGVKv (ORCPT ); Wed, 7 Jan 2004 16:10:51 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S265659AbUAGVKv (ORCPT ); Wed, 7 Jan 2004 16:10:51 -0500 Received: from ns.virtualhost.dk ([195.184.98.160]:56297 "EHLO virtualhost.dk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S265658AbUAGVKt (ORCPT ); Wed, 7 Jan 2004 16:10:49 -0500 Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 22:10:45 +0100 From: Jens Axboe To: Matt Mackall Cc: linux-kernel Subject: Re: 2.6.1-rc1-tiny2 Message-ID: <20040107211045.GJ16720@suse.de> References: <20040106054859.GA18208@waste.org> <20040107140640.GC16720@suse.de> <20040107185039.GC18208@waste.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20040107185039.GC18208@waste.org> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2370 Lines: 53 On Wed, Jan 07 2004, Matt Mackall wrote: > On Wed, Jan 07, 2004 at 03:06:40PM +0100, Jens Axboe wrote: > > On Mon, Jan 05 2004, Matt Mackall wrote: > > > This is the fourth release of the -tiny kernel tree. The aim of this > > > tree is to collect patches that reduce kernel disk and memory > > > footprint as well as tools for working on small systems. Target users > > > are things like embedded systems, small or legacy desktop folks, and > > > handhelds. > > > > > > Latest release includes: > > > - various compile fixes for last release > > > - actually include Andi Kleen's bloat-o-meter this time > > > - optional mempool removal > > > > Your CONFIG_MEMPOOL is completely broken as you are no longer giving the > > same guarentees (you have no reserve at all). Might as well change it to > > CONFIG_DEADLOCK instead. > > It's equivalent to a pool size of zero, yes, so deadlock odds are > significantly higher with some usage scenarios. I'll add a big fat > warning. Precisely. In most scenarios it makes deadlocks possible, where it was safe before (more below). > On the other hand, the existence of pre-allocated mempools can greatly > increase the likelihood of starvation, oom, and deadlock on the rest > of the system, especially as it becomes a greater percentage of the > total free memory on a small system. In other words, I had to cut this > corner to make running in 2M work with my config. When I merge > CONFIG_BLOCK, it'll be more generally useful. It needs to be carefulled tuned, definitely. > For the sake of our other readers, I'll point out that mempool doesn't > intrinisically reduce deadlock odds to zero unless we have a hard > limit on requests in flight that's strictly less than pool size. That's not true, depends entirely on usage. It's not a magic wand. And you don't need a hard limit, you only need progress guarentee. Typically just a single pre-allocated object can make you 100% deadlock free, if stacking is not involved. So for most cases, I think it would be much better if you just hard wired min_nr to 1, that would move you from 90% to 99% safe :-) -- Jens Axboe - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/