gen_pool_alloc_algo() iterates over the chunks of a pool trying to find
a contiguous block of memory that satisfies the allocation request.
The shortcut
if (size > atomic_read(&chunk->avail))
continue;
makes the loop skip over chunks that do not have enough bytes left to
fulfill the request. There are two situations, though, where an
allocation might still fail:
(1) The available memory is not contiguous, i.e. the request cannot
be fulfilled due to external fragmentation.
(2) A race condition. Another thread runs the same code concurrently
and is quicker to grab the available memory.
In those situations, the loop calls pool->algo() to search the entire
chunk, and pool->algo() returns some value that is >= end_bit to
indicate that the search failed. This return value is then assigned to
start_bit. The variables start_bit and end_bit describe the range that
should be searched, and this range should be reset for every chunk that
is searched. Today, the code fails to reset start_bit to 0. As a
result, prefixes of subsequent chunks are ignored. Memory allocations
might fail even though there is plenty of room left in these prefixes of
those other chunks.
Fixes: 7f184275aa ("lib, Make gen_pool memory allocator lockless")
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/1477420604-28918-1-git-send-email-danielmentz@google.com
Signed-off-by: Daniel Mentz <danielmentz@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@efficios.com>
Acked-by: Will Deacon <will.deacon@arm.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
