From: Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxxx> Boris Zhmurov has reported RCU stalls during the kswapd reclaim: 17511.573645] INFO: rcu_sched detected stalls on CPUs/tasks: [17511.573699] 23-...: (22 ticks this GP) idle=92f/140000000000000/0 softirq=2638404/2638404 fqs=23 [17511.573740] (detected by 4, t=6389 jiffies, g=786259, c=786258, q=42115) [17511.573776] Task dump for CPU 23: [17511.573777] kswapd1 R running task 0 148 2 0x00000008 [17511.573781] 0000000000000000 ffff8efe5f491400 ffff8efe44523e68 ffff8f16a7f49000 [17511.573782] 0000000000000000 ffffffffafb67482 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 [17511.573784] 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 ffff8efe44523e58 00000000016dbbee [17511.573786] Call Trace: [17511.573796] [<ffffffffafb67482>] ? shrink_node+0xd2/0x2f0 [17511.573798] [<ffffffffafb683ab>] ? kswapd+0x2cb/0x6a0 [17511.573800] [<ffffffffafb680e0>] ? mem_cgroup_shrink_node+0x160/0x160 [17511.573806] [<ffffffffafa8b63d>] ? kthread+0xbd/0xe0 [17511.573810] [<ffffffffafa2967a>] ? __switch_to+0x1fa/0x5c0 [17511.573813] [<ffffffffaff9095f>] ? ret_from_fork+0x1f/0x40 [17511.573815] [<ffffffffafa8b580>] ? kthread_create_on_node+0x180/0x180 a closer code inspection has shown that we might indeed miss all the scheduling points in the reclaim path if no pages can be isolated from the LRU list. This is a pathological case but other reports from Donald Buczek have shown that we might indeed hit such a path: clusterd-989 [009] .... 118023.654491: mm_vmscan_direct_reclaim_end: nr_reclaimed=193 kswapd1-86 [001] dN.. 118023.987475: mm_vmscan_lru_isolate: isolate_mode=0 classzone=0 order=0 nr_requested=32 nr_scanned=4239830 nr_taken=0 file=1 kswapd1-86 [001] dN.. 118024.320968: mm_vmscan_lru_isolate: isolate_mode=0 classzone=0 order=0 nr_requested=32 nr_scanned=4239844 nr_taken=0 file=1 kswapd1-86 [001] dN.. 118024.654375: mm_vmscan_lru_isolate: isolate_mode=0 classzone=0 order=0 nr_requested=32 nr_scanned=4239858 nr_taken=0 file=1 kswapd1-86 [001] dN.. 118024.987036: mm_vmscan_lru_isolate: isolate_mode=0 classzone=0 order=0 nr_requested=32 nr_scanned=4239872 nr_taken=0 file=1 kswapd1-86 [001] dN.. 118025.319651: mm_vmscan_lru_isolate: isolate_mode=0 classzone=0 order=0 nr_requested=32 nr_scanned=4239886 nr_taken=0 file=1 kswapd1-86 [001] dN.. 118025.652248: mm_vmscan_lru_isolate: isolate_mode=0 classzone=0 order=0 nr_requested=32 nr_scanned=4239900 nr_taken=0 file=1 kswapd1-86 [001] dN.. 118025.984870: mm_vmscan_lru_isolate: isolate_mode=0 classzone=0 order=0 nr_requested=32 nr_scanned=4239914 nr_taken=0 file=1 [...] kswapd1-86 [001] dN.. 118084.274403: mm_vmscan_lru_isolate: isolate_mode=0 classzone=0 order=0 nr_requested=32 nr_scanned=4241133 nr_taken=0 file=1 this is minute long snapshot which didn't take a single page from the LRU. It is not entirely clear why only 1303 pages have been scanned during that time (maybe there was a heavy IRQ activity interfering). In any case it looks like we can really hit long periods without scheduling on non preemptive kernels so an explicit cond_resched() in shrink_node_memcg which is independent on the reclaim operation is due. Reported-and-tested-by: Boris Zhmurov <bb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Reported-by: Donald Buczek <buczek@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Reported-by: "Christopher S. Aker" <caker@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Reported-by: Paul Menzel <pmenzel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxxx> --- Hi, there were multiple reportes of the similar RCU stalls. Only Boris has confirmed that this patch helps in his workload. Others might see a slightly different issue and that should be investigated if it is the case. As pointed out by Paul [1] cond_resched might be not sufficient to silence RCU stalls because that would require a real scheduling. This is a separate problem, though, and Paul is working with Peter [2] to resolve it. Anyway, I believe that this patch should be a good start because it really seems that nr_taken=0 during the LRU isolation can be triggered in the real life. All reporters are agreeing to start seeing this issue when moving on to 4.8 kernel which might be just a coincidence or a different behavior of some subsystem. Well, MM has moved from zone to node reclaim but I couldn't have found any direct relation to that change. [1] http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20161130142955.GS3924@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [2] http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20161201124024.GB3924@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx mm/vmscan.c | 2 ++ 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+) diff --git a/mm/vmscan.c b/mm/vmscan.c index c05f00042430..c4abf08861d2 100644 --- a/mm/vmscan.c +++ b/mm/vmscan.c @@ -2362,6 +2362,8 @@ static void shrink_node_memcg(struct pglist_data *pgdat, struct mem_cgroup *memc } } + cond_resched(); + if (nr_reclaimed < nr_to_reclaim || scan_adjusted) continue; -- 2.10.2 -- To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to majordomo@xxxxxxxxx. For more info on Linux MM, see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ . Don't email: <a href=mailto:"dont@xxxxxxxxx"> email@xxxxxxxxx </a>