which kmalloc flag should be used - c

Question

I've been searching everywhere finding a documentation that explains when to use each flags of kmalloc. I found this reference which fairly explains when to use some of the flags but I can't find the other flags like GFP_HIGHUSER_PAGECACHE, GFP_HIGHUSER_MOVABLE and other flags in gfp.h header file... Can somebody tell me when to use these other flags?

Answer 1

You want section Get Free Page (GFP) Flags of Understanding the Linux Virtual Memory Manager (pdf). It is for the 2.4 kernel but it should still apply.
original post:
From the 2.6.32 gfp.h:
/*
* Action modifiers - doesn't change the zoning
*
* __GFP_REPEAT: Try hard to allocate the memory, but the allocation attempt
* _might_ fail. This depends upon the particular VM implementation.
*
* __GFP_NOFAIL: The VM implementation _must_ retry infinitely: the caller
* cannot handle allocation failures.
*
* __GFP_NORETRY: The VM implementation must not retry indefinitely.
*
* __GFP_MOVABLE: Flag that this page will be movable by the page migration
* mechanism or reclaimed
*/
#define __GFP_WAIT ((__force gfp_t)0x10u) /* Can wait and reschedule? */
#define __GFP_ ((__force gfp_t)0x20u) /* Should access emergency pools? */
#define __GFP_IO ((__force gfp_t)0x40u) /* Can start physical IO? */
#define __GFP_FS ((__force gfp_t)0x80u) /* Can call down to low-level FS? */
#define __GFP_COLD ((__force gfp_t)0x100u) /* Cache-cold page required */
#define __GFP_NOWARN ((__force gfp_t)0x200u) /* Suppress page allocation failure warning */
#define __GFP_REPEAT ((__force gfp_t)0x400u) /* See above */
#define __GFP_NOFAIL ((__force gfp_t)0x800u) /* See above */
#define __GFP_NORETRY ((__force gfp_t)0x1000u)/* See above */
#define __GFP_COMP ((__force gfp_t)0x4000u)/* Add compound page metadata */
#define __GFP_ZERO ((__force gfp_t)0x8000u)/* Return zeroed page on success */
#define __GFP_NOMEMALLOC ((__force gfp_t)0x10000u) /* Don't use emergency reserves */
#define __GFP_HARDWALL ((__force gfp_t)0x20000u) /* Enforce hardwall cpuset memory allocs */
#define __GFP_THISNODE ((__force gfp_t)0x40000u)/* No fallback, no policies */
#define __GFP_RECLAIMABLE ((__force gfp_t)0x80000u) /* Page is reclaimable */
Also, from kernel archives:
To make code easier to read, a set of
three GFP flags are added called
GFP_PAGECACHE, GFP_NOFS_PAGECACHE and
GFP_HIGHUSER_PAGECACHE.
Looking at the diff source on that page shows the flags you were asking about are a combination of existing flags:
#define GFP_HIGHUSER_MOVABLE (__GFP_WAIT | __GFP_IO | __GFP_FS | \
__GFP_HARDWALL | __GFP_HIGHMEM | \
__GFP_MOVABLE)
+#define GFP_NOFS_PAGECACHE (__GFP_WAIT | __GFP_IO | __GFP_MOVABLE)
+#define GFP_USER_PAGECACHE (__GFP_WAIT | __GFP_IO | __GFP_FS | \
+ __GFP_HARDWALL | __GFP_MOVABLE)
+#define GFP_HIGHUSER_PAGECACHE (__GFP_WAIT | __GFP_IO | __GFP_FS | \
+ __GFP_HARDWALL | __GFP_HIGHMEM | \
+ __GFP_MOVABLE)
#ifdef CONFIG_NUMA
#define GFP_THISNODE (__GFP_THISNODE | __GFP_NOWARN | __GFP_NORETRY)