check_partition() allocates a buffer to use as backing memory for seq_buf. This buffer can be allocated with kmalloc() as there's nothing special about it to go directly to the page allocator. kmalloc() provides a better API that does not require ugly casts and kfree() does not need to know the size of the freed object. For a single allocation on the cold path the performance difference between kmalloc() and __get_free_pages() is not measurable as both allocators take an object/page from a per-CPU list for fast path allocations. For the slow path the performance is anyway determined by the amount of reclaim involved rather than by what allocator is used. Replace use of __get_free_page() with kmalloc() and free_page() with kfree(). Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/635405e4-9423-4a25-a6e7-e03c8ea0bcbe@redhat.com Signed-off-by: Mike Rapoport (Microsoft) --- This is a (tiny) part of larger work of replacing page allocator calls with kmalloc: Also in git: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/rppt/linux.git gfp-to-kmalloc/block Signed-off-by: Mike Rapoport --- v2 changes: * reword changelog To: Jens Axboe Cc: linux-block@vger.kernel.org Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org v1: https://patch.msgid.link/20260520-block-v1-1-6463dc2cf042@kernel.org --- block/partitions/core.c | 6 +++--- 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/block/partitions/core.c b/block/partitions/core.c index 5d5332ce586b..b5c59b79ca7c 100644 --- a/block/partitions/core.c +++ b/block/partitions/core.c @@ -124,7 +124,7 @@ static struct parsed_partitions *check_partition(struct gendisk *hd) state = allocate_partitions(hd); if (!state) return NULL; - state->pp_buf.buffer = (char *)__get_free_page(GFP_KERNEL); + state->pp_buf.buffer = kmalloc(PAGE_SIZE, GFP_KERNEL); if (!state->pp_buf.buffer) { free_partitions(state); return NULL; @@ -154,7 +154,7 @@ static struct parsed_partitions *check_partition(struct gendisk *hd) if (res > 0) { printk(KERN_INFO "%s", seq_buf_str(&state->pp_buf)); - free_page((unsigned long)state->pp_buf.buffer); + kfree(state->pp_buf.buffer); return state; } if (state->access_beyond_eod) @@ -170,7 +170,7 @@ static struct parsed_partitions *check_partition(struct gendisk *hd) printk(KERN_INFO "%s", seq_buf_str(&state->pp_buf)); } - free_page((unsigned long)state->pp_buf.buffer); + kfree(state->pp_buf.buffer); free_partitions(state); return ERR_PTR(res); } --- base-commit: 5d6919055dec134de3c40167a490f33c74c12581 change-id: 20260520-block-25582753fd38 Best regards, -- Sincerely yours, Mike.