rds, the more fragmented memory
is, the more retry attempts __GFP_REPEAT will make (particularly for
higher order allocations).

This changes the semantics of __GFP_REPEAT subtly, but *only* for
allocations > PAGE_ALLOC_COSTLY_ORDER. With this patch, for those size
allocations, we will try up to some point (at least 1<<order reclaimed
pages), rather than forever (which is the case for allocations <=
PAGE_ALLOC_COSTLY_ORDER).

This change improves the /proc/sys/vm/nr_hugepages interface with a
follow-on patch that makes pool allocations use __GFP_REPEAT. Rather
than administrators repeatedly echo'ing a particular value into the
sysctl, and forcing reclaim into action manually, this change allows for
the sysctl to attempt a reasonable effort itself. Similarly, dynamic
pool growth should be more successful under load, as lumpy reclaim can
try to free up pages, rather than failing right away.

Choosing to reclaim only up to the order of the requested allocation
strikes a balance between not failing hugepage allocations and returning
to the caller when it's unlikely to every succeed. Because of lumpy
reclaim, if we have freed the order requested, hopefully it has been in
big chunks and those chunks will allow our allocation to succeed. If
that isn't the case after freeing up the current order, I don't think it
is likely to succeed in the future, although it is possible given a
particular fragmentation pattern.

Signed-off-by: Nishanth Aravamudan <nacc@us.ibm.com>
Cc: Andy Whitcroft <apw@shadowen.org>
Tested-by: Mel Gorman <mel@csn.ul.ie>
Cc: Dave Hansen <haveblue@us.ibm.com>
Cc: Christoph Lameter <clameter@sgi.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
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