On Mon, 7 Oct 2019 10:16:21 +0200 Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Fri 04-10-19 14:57:01, Michal Hocko wrote: > > On Fri 04-10-19 08:31:49, Qian Cai wrote: > > > Long time ago, there fixed a similar deadlock in show_slab_objects() > > > [1]. However, it is apparently due to the commits like 01fb58bcba63 > > > ("slab: remove synchronous synchronize_sched() from memcg cache > > > deactivation path") and 03afc0e25f7f ("slab: get_online_mems for > > > kmem_cache_{create,destroy,shrink}"), this kind of deadlock is back by > > > just reading files in /sys/kernel/slab which will generate a lockdep > > > splat below. > > > > > > Since the "mem_hotplug_lock" here is only to obtain a stable online node > > > mask while racing with NUMA node hotplug, in the worst case, the results > > > may me miscalculated while doing NUMA node hotplug, but they shall be > > > corrected by later reads of the same files. > > > > I think it is important to mention that this doesn't expose the > > show_slab_objects to use-after-free. There is only a single path that > > might really race here and that is the slab hotplug notifier callback > > __kmem_cache_shrink (via slab_mem_going_offline_callback) but that path > > doesn't really destroy kmem_cache_node data structures. Yes, I noted this during review. It's a bit subtle and is worthy of more than a changelog note, I think. How about this? --- a/mm/slub.c~mm-slub-fix-a-deadlock-in-show_slab_objects-fix +++ a/mm/slub.c @@ -4851,6 +4851,10 @@ static ssize_t show_slab_objects(struct * already held which will conflict with an existing lock order: * * mem_hotplug_lock->slab_mutex->kernfs_mutex + * + * We don't really need mem_hotplug_lock (to hold off + * slab_mem_going_offline_callback()) here because slab's memory hot + * unplug code doesn't destroy the kmem_cache->node[] data. */ #ifdef CONFIG_SLUB_DEBUG _ > Andrew, please add this to the changelog so that we do not have to > scratch heads again when looking into that code. I did that as well.