gen_pool_alloc(9)

💖 NAME 💖

gen_pool_alloc — allocate special memory from the pool, bestie ✨

So yeah, this is the Kernel API Manual entry for our girl gen_pool_alloc(9), and she's literally the one you call when you need to pull special memory out of a pool 🫶

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

unsigned long gen_pool_alloc (struct gen_pool *pool , size_t size );

That's the whole vibe. Two args, one unsigned long coming back at you 💅

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🎀 ARGUMENTS 🎀

• pool — the pool you're allocating from, iykyk 🏊‍♀️
• size — the number of bytes you want allocated out of the pool, fr fr

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

Okay so here's the tea ☕: gen_pool_alloc allocates the requested number of bytes from the specified pool. That's it, that's the job, and she ate 🔥

It uses the pool allocation function — with the first-fit algorithm by default — which is a whole thing you should know about before you go poking at pool internals 👀

⚠️ Important caveat, no cap: this function can not be used in an NMI handler on architectures without an NMI-safe cmpxchg implementation. Like, literally cannot. Don't try it, bestie, that's not the moment for main character energy 😭💀

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• Kernel file ./include/linux/genalloc.h and genpool_algo_t(9) — go read these, they're iconic 👑
• gen_pool_add(9) — the sibling function, she's also slaying

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And that's a wrap, bestie! This little gem lives over in ./include/linux — the October 2026 edition, mwah 💋💖✨🎀🦋🌸💅🫶