fs, seqfile: always allow oom killer
authorGreg Thelen <gthelen@google.com>
Sat, 7 Nov 2015 00:32:42 +0000 (16:32 -0800)
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Sat, 7 Nov 2015 01:50:42 +0000 (17:50 -0800)
commit0f930902eb8806cff8dcaef9ff9faf3cfa5fd748
tree9bbe05a8e86e89f7b3dcf51d7f066f36ce698e04
parent25c6bb76eafe37c8963ae58a6a1bcf4069caeedb
fs, seqfile: always allow oom killer

Since 5cec38ac866b ("fs, seq_file: fallback to vmalloc instead of oom kill
processes") seq_buf_alloc() avoids calling the oom killer for PAGE_SIZE or
smaller allocations; but larger allocations can use the oom killer via
vmalloc().  Thus reads of small files can return ENOMEM, but larger files
use the oom killer to avoid ENOMEM.

The effect of this bug is that reads from /proc and other virtual
filesystems can return ENOMEM instead of the preferred behavior - oom
killing something (possibly the calling process).  I don't know of anyone
except Google who has noticed the issue.

I suspect the fix is more needed in smaller systems where there isn't any
reclaimable memory.  But these seem like the kinds of systems which
probably don't use the oom killer for production situations.

Memory overcommit requires use of the oom killer to select a victim
regardless of file size.

Enable oom killer for small seq_buf_alloc() allocations.

Fixes: 5cec38ac866b ("fs, seq_file: fallback to vmalloc instead of oom kill processes")
Signed-off-by: David Rientjes <rientjes@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Greg Thelen <gthelen@google.com>
Acked-by: Eric Dumazet <edumazet@google.com>
Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
fs/seq_file.c