Subject: [PATCH] powerpc/iommu: use GFP_KERNEL instead of GFP_ATOMIC in iommu_init_table()

From: Nishanth Aravamudan <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2013 14:04:53 -0700

Under heavy (DLPAR?) stress, we tripped this panic() in
arch/powerpc/kernel/iommu.c::iommu_init_table():
    
	page = alloc_pages_node(nid, GFP_ATOMIC, get_order(sz));
	if (!page)
		panic("iommu_init_table: Can't allocate %ld bytes\n",
    sz);
    
Before the panic() we got a page allocation failure for an order-2
allocation. There appears to be memory free, but perhaps not in the
ATOMIC context. I looked through all the call-sites of
iommu_init_table() and didn't see any obvious reason to need an ATOMIC
allocation. Most call-sites in fact have an explicit GFP_KERNEL
allocation shortly before the call to iommu_init_table(), indicating we
are not in an atomic context. There is some indirection for some paths,
but I didn't see any locks indicating that GFP_KERNEL is inappropriate.

With this change under the same conditions, we have not been able to
reproduce the panic.
    
Signed-off-by: Nishanth Aravamudan <[email-masked]>

diff --git a/arch/powerpc/kernel/iommu.c b/arch/powerpc/kernel/iommu.c
index 0adab06..572bb5b 100644
--- a/arch/powerpc/kernel/iommu.c
+++ b/arch/powerpc/kernel/iommu.c
@@ -661,7 +661,7 @@ struct iommu_table *iommu_init_table(struct iommu_table *tbl, int nid)
 	/* number of bytes needed for the bitmap */
 	sz = BITS_TO_LONGS(tbl->it_size) * sizeof(unsigned long);
 
-	page = alloc_pages_node(nid, GFP_ATOMIC, get_order(sz));
+	page = alloc_pages_node(nid, GFP_KERNEL, get_order(sz));
 	if (!page)
 		panic("iommu_init_table: Can't allocate %ld bytes\n", sz);
 	tbl->it_map = page_address(page);