diff --git a/lib/objpool.c b/lib/objpool.c
index fd108fe0d095..b998b720c732 100644
--- a/lib/objpool.c
+++ b/lib/objpool.c
@@ -74,15 +74,21 @@ objpool_init_percpu_slots(struct objpool_head *pool, int nr_objs,
 		 * warm caches and TLB hits. in default vmalloc is used to
 		 * reduce the pressure of kernel slab system. as we know,
 		 * mimimal size of vmalloc is one page since vmalloc would
-		 * always align the requested size to page size
+		 * always align the requested size to page size.
+		 * but if vmalloc fails or it is not available (e.g. GFP_ATOMIC)
+		 * allocate percpu slot with kmalloc.
 		 */
-		if ((pool->gfp & GFP_ATOMIC) == GFP_ATOMIC)
-			slot = kmalloc_node(size, pool->gfp, cpu_to_node(i));
-		else
+		slot = NULL;
+
+		if ((pool->gfp & (GFP_ATOMIC | GFP_KERNEL)) != GFP_ATOMIC)
 			slot = __vmalloc_node(size, sizeof(void *), pool->gfp,
 				cpu_to_node(i), __builtin_return_address(0));
-		if (!slot)
-			return -ENOMEM;
+
+		if (!slot) {
+			slot = kmalloc_node(size, pool->gfp, cpu_to_node(i));
+			if (!slot)
+				return -ENOMEM;
+		}
 		memset(slot, 0, size);
 		pool->cpu_slots[i] = slot;