* Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Wed 09-03-16 14:17:10, Ingo Molnar wrote:
> >
> > * Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > > > [...] this is a follow up work for oom_reaper [1]. As the async OOM killing
> > > > depends on oom_sem for read we would really appreciate if a holder for write
> > > > stood in the way. This patchset is changing many of down_write calls to be
> > > > killable to help those cases when the writer is blocked and waiting for
> > > > readers to release the lock and so help __oom_reap_task to process the oom
> > > > victim.
> > > >
> > > > there seems to be a misunderstanding: if a writer is blocked waiting for
> > > > readers then no new readers are allowed - the writer will get its turn the
> > > > moment all existing readers drop the lock.
> > >
> > > Readers might be blocked e.g. on the memory allocation which cannot proceed due
> > > to OOM. Such a reader might be operating on a remote mm.
> >
> > Doing complex allocations with the mm locked looks fragile no matter what: we
> > should add debugging code that warns if allocations are done with a remote mm
> > locked. (it should be trivial)
>
> No matter how fragile is that it is not something non-existent. Just
> have a look at use_mm for example. We definitely do not want to warn
> about those, right?
Sure we care about eliminating fragility, and usage does not seem to be widespread
at all:
triton:~/tip> git grep -w use_mm
drivers/staging/rdma/hfi1/user_sdma.c: use_mm(req->pq->user_mm);
drivers/usb/gadget/function/f_fs.c: use_mm(io_data->mm);
drivers/usb/gadget/legacy/inode.c: use_mm(mm);
drivers/vhost/vhost.c: use_mm(dev->mm);
I think we also want to keep our general flexibility wrt. eventually turning the
mmap_sem into a spinlock ...
> > > I am not against interruptible variant as well but I suspect that some paths
> > > are not expected to return EINTR. I haven't checked them for this but
> > > killable is sufficient for the problem I am trying to solve. That problem is
> > > real while latencies do not seem to be that eminent.
> >
> > If they don't expect EINTR then they sure don't expect SIGKILL either!
>
> Why? Each syscall already is killable as the task might be killed by the OOM
> killer.
Not all syscalls are interruptible - for example sys_sync() isn't:
SYSCALL_DEFINE0(sync)
{
int nowait = 0, wait = 1;
wakeup_flusher_threads(0, WB_REASON_SYNC);
iterate_supers(sync_inodes_one_sb, NULL);
iterate_supers(sync_fs_one_sb, &nowait);
iterate_supers(sync_fs_one_sb, &wait);
iterate_bdevs(fdatawrite_one_bdev, NULL);
iterate_bdevs(fdatawait_one_bdev, NULL);
if (unlikely(laptop_mode))
laptop_sync_completion();
return 0;
}
> > There's a (very) low number of system calls that are not interruptible, but
> > the vast majority is.
>
> That might be true. I just fail to see how this is related to the
> particular problem I am trying to solve. As I've said those callsites
> which cause problems with latencies can be later converted to
> interruptible waiting trivially.
So my problem as I see it is the following: you are adding a rare API to an
already complex locking interface, further complicating already complicated MM
code paths in various ways. Only to help a case that is a third type of rare:
OOM-kill.
That's a surefire whack-a-mole nest of bugs, if I've ever seen one.
What I am suggesting instead is a slight modification of the concept: to re-phrase
the problem set and think in broader terms of interruptability: make certain MM
operations, especially ones which tend to hinder OOM-kill latencies, more
interruptible - which implicitly also makes them more OOM-killable.
That's a win-win as I see it: as both your usecase and a lot of other usecases
will be improved - and it will also be tested a lot more than any OOM-kill path
will be tested.
I might be wrong in the end, but your counterarguments were not convincing so far
(to me).
Thanks,
Ingo
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