mm: introduce memalloc_nofs_{save,restore} API

GFP_NOFS context is used for the following 5 reasons currently:

 - to prevent from deadlocks when the lock held by the allocation
   context would be needed during the memory reclaim

 - to prevent from stack overflows during the reclaim because the
   allocation is performed from a deep context already

 - to prevent lockups when the allocation context depends on other
   reclaimers to make a forward progress indirectly

 - just in case because this would be safe from the fs POV

 - silence lockdep false positives

Unfortunately overuse of this allocation context brings some problems to
the MM.  Memory reclaim is much weaker (especially during heavy FS
metadata workloads), OOM killer cannot be invoked because the MM layer
doesn't have enough information about how much memory is freeable by the
FS layer.

In many cases it is far from clear why the weaker context is even used
and so it might be used unnecessarily.  We would like to get rid of
those as much as possible.  One way to do that is to use the flag in
scopes rather than isolated cases.  Such a scope is declared when really
necessary, tracked per task and all the allocation requests from within
the context will simply inherit the GFP_NOFS semantic.

Not only this is easier to understand and maintain because there are
much less problematic contexts than specific allocation requests, this
also helps code paths where FS layer interacts with other layers (e.g.
crypto, security modules, MM etc...) and there is no easy way to convey
the allocation context between the layers.

Introduce memalloc_nofs_{save,restore} API to control the scope of
GFP_NOFS allocation context.  This is basically copying
memalloc_noio_{save,restore} API we have for other restricted allocation
context GFP_NOIO.  The PF_MEMALLOC_NOFS flag already exists and it is
just an alias for PF_FSTRANS which has been xfs specific until recently.
There are no more PF_FSTRANS users anymore so let's just drop it.

PF_MEMALLOC_NOFS is now checked in the MM layer and drops __GFP_FS
implicitly same as PF_MEMALLOC_NOIO drops __GFP_IO.  memalloc_noio_flags
is renamed to current_gfp_context because it now cares about both
PF_MEMALLOC_NOFS and PF_MEMALLOC_NOIO contexts.  Xfs code paths preserve
their semantic.  kmem_flags_convert() doesn't need to evaluate the flag
anymore.

This patch shouldn't introduce any functional changes.

Let's hope that filesystems will drop direct GFP_NOFS (resp.  ~__GFP_FS)
usage as much as possible and only use a properly documented
memalloc_nofs_{save,restore} checkpoints where they are appropriate.

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix comment typo, reflow comment]
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20170306131408.9828-5-mhocko@kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com>
Acked-by: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz>
Cc: Dave Chinner <david@fromorbit.com>
Cc: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu>
Cc: Chris Mason <clm@fb.com>
Cc: David Sterba <dsterba@suse.cz>
Cc: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Cc: Brian Foster <bfoster@redhat.com>
Cc: Darrick J. Wong <darrick.wong@oracle.com>
Cc: Nikolay Borisov <nborisov@suse.com>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>

1 files changed, 8 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/include/linux/gfp.h b/include/linux/gfp.h
index 978232a3b4ae..2bfcfd33e476 100644
--- a/include/linux/gfp.h
+++ b/include/linux/gfp.h
@@ -210,8 +210,16 @@ struct vm_area_struct;
  *
  * GFP_NOIO will use direct reclaim to discard clean pages or slab pages
  *   that do not require the starting of any physical IO.
+ *   Please try to avoid using this flag directly and instead use
+ *   memalloc_noio_{save,restore} to mark the whole scope which cannot
+ *   perform any IO with a short explanation why. All allocation requests
+ *   will inherit GFP_NOIO implicitly.
  *
  * GFP_NOFS will use direct reclaim but will not use any filesystem interfaces.
+ *   Please try to avoid using this flag directly and instead use
+ *   memalloc_nofs_{save,restore} to mark the whole scope which cannot/shouldn't
+ *   recurse into the FS layer with a short explanation why. All allocation
+ *   requests will inherit GFP_NOFS implicitly.
  *
  * GFP_USER is for userspace allocations that also need to be directly
  *   accessibly by the kernel or hardware. It is typically used by hardware