The this_cpu_cmpxchg makes the do-while loop pass as long as the s->cpu_slab->partial as the same value. It doesn't care what happened to that slab. Interrupt is not disabled, and new alloc/free can happen in the interrupt handlers. Theoretically, after we have a reference to the it, stored in _oldpage_, the first slab on the partial list on this CPU can be moved to kmem_cache_node and then moved to different kmem_cache_cpu and then somehow can be added back as head to partial list of current kmem_cache_cpu, though that is a very rare case. If that rare case really happened, the reading of oldpage->pobjects may get a 0xdead0000 unexpectedly, stored in _pobjects_, if the reading happens just after another CPU removed the slab from kmem_cache_node, setting lru.prev to LIST_POISON2 (0xdead000000000200). The wrong _pobjects_(negative) then prevents slabs from being moved to kmem_cache_node and being finally freed. We see in a vmcore, there are 375210 slabs kept in the partial list of one kmem_cache_cpu, but only 305 in-use objects in the same list for kmalloc-2048 cache. We see negative values for page.pobjects, the last page with negative _pobjects_ has the value of 0xdead0004, the next page looks good (_pobjects is 1). For the fix, I wanted to call this_cpu_cmpxchg_double with oldpage->pobjects, but failed due to size difference between oldpage->pobjects and cpu_slab->partial. So I changed to call this_cpu_cmpxchg_double with _tid_. I don't really want no alloc/free happen in between, but just want to make sure the first slab did expereince a remove and re-add. This patch is more to call for ideas. Signed-off-by: Wengang Wang <wen.gang.wang@xxxxxxxxxx> --- mm/slub.c | 20 +++++++++++++++++--- 1 file changed, 17 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/mm/slub.c b/mm/slub.c index e3629cd..26539e6 100644 --- a/mm/slub.c +++ b/mm/slub.c @@ -2248,6 +2248,7 @@ static void put_cpu_partial(struct kmem_cache *s, struct page *page, int drain) { #ifdef CONFIG_SLUB_CPU_PARTIAL struct page *oldpage; + unsigned long tid; int pages; int pobjects; @@ -2255,8 +2256,12 @@ static void put_cpu_partial(struct kmem_cache *s, struct page *page, int drain) do { pages = 0; pobjects = 0; - oldpage = this_cpu_read(s->cpu_slab->partial); + tid = this_cpu_read(s->cpu_slab->tid); + /* read tid before reading oldpage */ + barrier(); + + oldpage = this_cpu_read(s->cpu_slab->partial); if (oldpage) { pobjects = oldpage->pobjects; pages = oldpage->pages; @@ -2283,8 +2288,17 @@ static void put_cpu_partial(struct kmem_cache *s, struct page *page, int drain) page->pobjects = pobjects; page->next = oldpage; - } while (this_cpu_cmpxchg(s->cpu_slab->partial, oldpage, page) - != oldpage); + /* we dont' change tid, but want to make sure it didn't change + * in between. We don't really hope alloc/free not happen on + * this CPU, but don't want the first slab be removed from and + * then re-added as head to this partial list. If that case + * happened, pobjects may read 0xdead0000 when this slab is just + * removed from kmem_cache_node by other CPU setting lru.prev + * to LIST_POISON2. + */ + } while (this_cpu_cmpxchg_double(s->cpu_slab->partial, s->cpu_slab->tid, + oldpage, tid, page, tid) == 0); + if (unlikely(!s->cpu_partial)) { unsigned long flags; -- 2.9.5