On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 08:22:02PM +0200, Oleg Nesterov wrote: > On 09/17, Aaron Tomlin wrote: > > > > Since do_sync_work() is a deferred function it can block indefinitely by > > design. At present do_sync_work() is added to the global system_wq. > > As such a deadlock is theoretically possible between sys_unmount() and > > sync_filesystems(): > > > > * The current work fn on the system_wq (do_sync_work()) is blocked > > waiting to aquire a sb's s_umount for reading. > > > > * The "umount" task is the current owner of the s_umount in > > question but is waiting for do_sync_work() to continue. > > Thus we hit a deadlock situation. > > > I can't comment the patches in this area, but I am just curious... > > Could you explain this deadlock in more details? I simply can't understand > what "waiting for do_sync_work()" actually means. Hopefully this helps: "umount" "events/1" sys_umount sysrq_handle_sync deactivate_super(sb) emergency_sync { schedule_work(work) ... queue_work(system_wq, work) down_write(&s->s_umount) do_sync_work(work) ... sync_filesystems(0) kill_block_super(s) ... generic_shutdown_super(sb) down_read(&sb->s_umount) // sop->put_super(sb) ext4_put_super(sb) invalidate_bdev(sb->s_bdev) lru_add_drain_all() for_each_online_cpu(cpu) { schedule_work_on(cpu, work) queue_work_on(cpu, system_wq, work) ... } } - Both lru_add_drain and do_sync_work work items are added to the same global system_wq - The current work fn on the system_wq is do_sync_work and is blocked waiting to aquire an sb's s_umount for reading - The umount task is the current owner of the s_umount in question but is waiting for do_sync_work to continue. Thus we hit a deadlock situation. -- Aaron Tomlin -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-fsdevel" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html