Hi, In vfree() shouldn't we be dropping vmlist_lock spinlock as soon as we unlinked the item from the vmlist? I.e. before we free the actual pages and the vm_struct itself. Or, perhaps it should be done _after_ vmfree_area_pages() but definitely before kfree(tmp) since tmp is no longer visible outside the function. (My only doubt whether vmfree_area_pages() should be inside the lock is because those pages may otherwise be reused for the next vmalloc request). (actually I put that spinlock in vfree and get_vm_area so at the time it seemed "obviously correct" but now I am having thoughts that it can still be optimized more). Regards, Tigran PS. To be specific, here is the patch I had in mind: --- linux/mm/vmalloc.c Mon Nov 20 11:56:14 2000 +++ work/mm/vmalloc.c Wed Nov 22 11:25:29 2000 @@ -214,9 +214,9 @@ for (p = &vmlist ; (tmp = *p) ; p = &tmp->next) { if (tmp->addr == addr) { *p = tmp->next; + write_unlock(&vmlist_lock); vmfree_area_pages(VMALLOC_VMADDR(tmp->addr), tmp->size); kfree(tmp); - write_unlock(&vmlist_lock); return; } } - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/