On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 09:23:56AM +0100, Manuel Lauss wrote:
> >> This fix is only necessary with the SLAB allocator and CONFIG_DEBUG_SLAB
> >> enabled; non-debug SLAB, SLUB do return nicely aligned addresses,
> >> debug-enabled SLUB currently panics early in the boot process.
> >
> > Queued for 2.6.34 - should this also go into 2.6.33?
>
> 2.6.33 and .32 at least. That code has been in there since the dawn of 2.6;
> the fact that nobody has tripped over this so far means that noone build
> kernels
> with slab debugging (I tripped over this while looking for something else) or
> the slab allocator behaviour changed recently.
The behaviour of the slab has been like this as long as I can remember.
Cherrypicking into the -stable branches as I'm writing this.
> > Have you considered increasing the value ARCH_KMALLOC_MINALIGN which
> > defaults to 8? Or your own slab cache of suitable alignment? The latter
> > is more something for frequent allocations.
>
> I have to admit I know nothing about Linux' memory management. Are slab
> caches not affected by the what I presume are "guard bytes" inserted into
> the memory areas when slab debug is on?
When creating a slab cache an alignment for objects allocated from this
cache can be specified.
Ralf
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