On Thu 07-04-22 12:45:41, Juergen Gross wrote:
On 07.04.22 12:34, Michal Hocko wrote:
Ccing Mel
On Thu 07-04-22 11:32:21, Juergen Gross wrote:
Since commit 9d3be21bf9c0 ("mm, page_alloc: simplify zonelist initialization") only zones with free memory are included in a built zonelist. This is problematic when e.g. all memory of a zone has been ballooned out.
What is the actual problem there?
When running as Xen guest new hotplugged memory will not be onlined automatically, but only on special request. This is done in order to support adding e.g. the possibility to use another GB of memory, while adding only a part of that memory initially.
In case adding that memory is populating a new zone, the page allocator won't be able to use this memory when it is onlined, as the zone wasn't added to the zonelist, due to managed_zone() returning 0.
How is that memory onlined? Because "regular" onlining (online_pages()) does rebuild zonelists if their zone hasn't been populated before.