SLAB_NO_REAP is documented as an option that will cause this slab not to be
reaped under memory pressure. However, that is not what happens. The only
thing that SLAB_NO_REAP controls at the moment is the reclaim of the unused
slab elements that were allocated in batch in cache_reap(). Cache_reap()
is run every few seconds independently of memory pressure.
Could we remove the whole thing? Its only used by three slabs anyways and
I cannot find a reason for having this option.
There is an additional problem with SLAB_NO_REAP. If set then the recovery
of objects from alien caches is switched off. Objects not freed on the
same node where they were initially allocated will only be reused if a
certain amount of objects accumulates from one alien node (not very likely)
or if the cache is explicitly shrunk. (Strangely __cache_shrink does not
check for SLAB_NO_REAP)
Getting rid of SLAB_NO_REAP fixes the problems with alien cache freeing.
Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter <clameter@sgi.com> Cc: Pekka Enberg <penberg@cs.helsinki.fi> Cc: Manfred Spraul <manfred@colorfullife.com> Cc: Mark Fasheh <mark.fasheh@oracle.com> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>