Re: [PATCH] slub: track number of slabs irrespective of CONFIG_SLUB_DEBUG

[Christopher Lameter <cl@linux.com>]

On Wed, 20 Jun 2018, Shakeel Butt wrote:

> For !CONFIG_SLUB_DEBUG, SLUB does not maintain the number of slabs
> allocated per node for a kmem_cache. Thus, slabs_node() in
> __kmem_cache_empty(), __kmem_cache_shrink() and __kmem_cache_destroy()
> will always return 0 for such config. This is wrong and can cause issues
> for all users of these functions.


CONFIG_SLUB_DEBUG is set by default on almost all builds. The only case
where CONFIG_SLUB_DEBUG is switched off is when we absolutely need to use
the minimum amount of memory (embedded or some such thing).

> The right solution is to make slabs_node() work even for
> !CONFIG_SLUB_DEBUG. The commit 0f389ec63077 ("slub: No need for per node
> slab counters if !SLUB_DEBUG") had put the per node slab counter under
> CONFIG_SLUB_DEBUG because it was only read through sysfs API and the
> sysfs API was disabled on !CONFIG_SLUB_DEBUG. However the users of the
> per node slab counter assumed that it will work in the absence of
> CONFIG_SLUB_DEBUG. So, make the counter work for !CONFIG_SLUB_DEBUG.

Please do not do this. Find a way to avoid these checks. The
objective of a !CONFIG_SLUB_DEBUG configuration is to not compile in
debuggin checks etc etc in order to reduce the code/data footprint to the
minimum necessary while sacrificing debuggability etc etc.

Maybe make it impossible to disable CONFIG_SLUB_DEBUG if CGROUPs are in
use?