When DEFERRED_STRUCT_PAGE_INIT is enabled, just a subset of memmap at boot are initialized, then the rest are initialized in parallel by starting one-off "pgdatinitX" kernel thread for each node X.
If page_ext_init is called before it, some pages will not have valid extension, this may lead the below kernel oops when booting up kernel: BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at (null) IP: [<ffffffff8118d982>] free_pcppages_bulk+0x2d2/0x8d0 PGD 0 Oops: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP DEBUG_PAGEALLOC Modules linked in: CPU: 11 PID: 106 Comm: pgdatinit1 Not tainted 4.6.0-rc5-next-20160427 #26 Hardware name: Intel Corporation S5520HC/S5520HC, BIOS S5500.86B.01.10.0025.030220091519 03/02/2009 task: ffff88017c080040 ti: ffff88017c084000 task.ti: ffff88017c084000 RIP: 0010:[<ffffffff8118d982>] [<ffffffff8118d982>] free_pcppages_bulk+0x2d2/0x8d0 RSP: 0000:ffff88017c087c48 EFLAGS: 00010046 RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: 0000000000000001 RDX: 0000000000000980 RSI: 0000000000000080 RDI: 0000000000660401 RBP: ffff88017c087cd0 R08: 0000000000000401 R09: 0000000000000009 R10: ffff88017c080040 R11: 000000000000000a R12: 0000000000000400 R13: ffffea0019810000 R14: ffffea0019810040 R15: ffff88066cfe6080 FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff88066cd40000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 0000000000000000 CR3: 0000000002406000 CR4: 00000000000006e0 Stack: ffff88066cd5bbd8 ffff88066cfe6640 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000001f0000001f ffff88066cd5bbe8 ffffea0019810000 000000008118f53e 0000000000000009 0000000000000401 ffffffff0000000a 0000000000000001 Call Trace: [<ffffffff8118f602>] free_hot_cold_page+0x192/0x1d0 [<ffffffff8118f69c>] __free_pages+0x5c/0x90 [<ffffffff8262a676>] __free_pages_boot_core+0x11a/0x14e [<ffffffff8262a6fa>] deferred_free_range+0x50/0x62 [<ffffffff8262aa46>] deferred_init_memmap+0x220/0x3c3 [<ffffffff8262a826>] ? setup_per_cpu_pageset+0x35/0x35 [<ffffffff8108b1f8>] kthread+0xf8/0x110 [<ffffffff81c1b732>] ret_from_fork+0x22/0x40 [<ffffffff8108b100>] ? kthread_create_on_node+0x200/0x200 Code: 49 89 d4 48 c1 e0 06 49 01 c5 e9 de fe ff ff 4c 89 f7 44 89 4d b8 4c 89 45 c0 44 89 5d c8 48 89 4d d0 e8 62 c7 07 00 48 8b 4d d0 <48> 8b 00 44 8b 5d c8 4c 8b 45 c0 44 8b 4d b8 a8 02 0f 84 05 ff RIP [<ffffffff8118d982>] free_pcppages_bulk+0x2d2/0x8d0 RSP <ffff88017c087c48> CR2: 0000000000000000 Move page_ext_init() after page_alloc_init_late() to make sure page extension is setup for all pages. CC: Joonsoo Kim <iamjoonsoo....@lge.com> Signed-off-by: Yang Shi <yang....@linaro.org> --- Changelog v1 --> v2: Added bug description in the commit log per Andrew's comment init/main.c | 3 ++- 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/init/main.c b/init/main.c index b3c6e36..2075faf 100644 --- a/init/main.c +++ b/init/main.c @@ -606,7 +606,6 @@ asmlinkage __visible void __init start_kernel(void) initrd_start = 0; } #endif - page_ext_init(); debug_objects_mem_init(); kmemleak_init(); setup_per_cpu_pageset(); @@ -1004,6 +1003,8 @@ static noinline void __init kernel_init_freeable(void) sched_init_smp(); page_alloc_init_late(); + /* Initialize page ext after all struct pages are initializaed */ + page_ext_init(); do_basic_setup(); -- 2.0.2