On 10/01/2012 05:27 PM, Michal Hocko wrote: > On Tue 18-09-12 18:04:09, Glauber Costa wrote: >> A lot of the initialization we do in mem_cgroup_create() is done with softirqs >> enabled. This include grabbing a css id, which holds &ss->id_lock->rlock, and >> the per-zone trees, which holds rtpz->lock->rlock. All of those signal to the >> lockdep mechanism that those locks can be used in SOFTIRQ-ON-W context. This >> means that the freeing of memcg structure must happen in a compatible context, >> otherwise we'll get a deadlock. > > Maybe I am missing something obvious but why cannot we simply disble > (soft)irqs in mem_cgroup_create rather than make the free path much more > complicated. It really feels strange to defer everything (e.g. soft > reclaim tree cleanup which should be a no-op at the time because there > shouldn't be any user pages in the group). > Ok. I was just able to come back to this today - I was mostly working on the slab feedback over the past few days. I will answer yours and Tejun's concerns at once: Here is the situation: the backtrace I get is this one: [ 124.956725] ================================= [ 124.957217] [ INFO: inconsistent lock state ] [ 124.957217] 3.5.0+ #99 Not tainted [ 124.957217] --------------------------------- [ 124.957217] inconsistent {SOFTIRQ-ON-W} -> {IN-SOFTIRQ-W} usage. [ 124.957217] ksoftirqd/0/3 [HC0[0]:SC1[1]:HE1:SE0] takes: [ 124.957217] (&(&ss->id_lock)->rlock){+.?...}, at: [<ffffffff810aa7b2>] spin_lock+0x9/0xb [ 124.957217] {SOFTIRQ-ON-W} state was registered at: [ 124.957217] [<ffffffff810996ed>] __lock_acquire+0x31f/0xd68 [ 124.957217] [<ffffffff8109a660>] lock_acquire+0x108/0x15c [ 124.957217] [<ffffffff81534ec4>] _raw_spin_lock+0x40/0x4f [ 124.957217] [<ffffffff810aa7b2>] spin_lock+0x9/0xb [ 124.957217] [<ffffffff810ad00e>] get_new_cssid+0x69/0xf3 [ 124.957217] [<ffffffff810ad0da>] cgroup_init_idr+0x42/0x60 [ 124.957217] [<ffffffff81b20e04>] cgroup_init+0x50/0x100 [ 124.957217] [<ffffffff81b05b9b>] start_kernel+0x3b9/0x3ee [ 124.957217] [<ffffffff81b052d6>] x86_64_start_reservations+0xb1/0xb5 [ 124.957217] [<ffffffff81b053d8>] x86_64_start_kernel+0xfe/0x10b So what we learn from it, is: we are acquiring a specific lock (the css id one) from softirq context. It was previously taken in a softirq-enabled context, that seems to be coming directly from get_new_cssid. Tejun correctly pointed out that we should never acquire that lock from a softirq context, in which he is right. But the situation changes slightly with kmem. Now, the following excerpt of a backtrace is possible: [ 48.602775] [<ffffffff81103095>] free_accounted_pages+0x47/0x4c [ 48.602775] [<ffffffff81047f90>] free_task+0x31/0x5c [ 48.602775] [<ffffffff8104807d>] __put_task_struct+0xc2/0xdb [ 48.602775] [<ffffffff8104dfc7>] put_task_struct+0x1e/0x22 [ 48.602775] [<ffffffff8104e144>] delayed_put_task_struct+0x7a/0x98 [ 48.602775] [<ffffffff810cf0e5>] __rcu_process_callbacks+0x269/0x3df [ 48.602775] [<ffffffff810cf28c>] rcu_process_callbacks+0x31/0x5b [ 48.602775] [<ffffffff8105266d>] __do_softirq+0x122/0x277 So as you can see, free_accounted_pages (that will trigger a memcg_put() -> mem_cgroup_free()) can now be called from softirq context, which is, an rcu callback (and I just realized I wrote the exact opposite in the subj line: man, I really suck at that!!) As a matter of fact, we could not move to our rcu callback as well: we need to move it to a worker thread with the rest. We already have a worker thread: he reason we have it is not static_branches: The reason is vfree(), that will BUG_ON(in_interrupt()) and could not be called from rcu callback as well. We moved static branches in there as well for a similar problem, but haven't introduced it. Could we move just part of it to the worker thread? Absolutely yes. Moving just free_css_id() is enough to make it work. But since it is not the first context related problem we had, I thought: "to hell with that, let's move everything and be safe". I am fine moving free_css_id() only if you would prefer. Can we disable softirqs when we initialize css_id? Maybe. My machine seems to boot fine and survive the simple workload that would trigger that bug if I use irqsave spinlocks instead of normal spinlocks. But this has to be done from cgroup core: We have no control over css creation in memcg. How would you guys like me to handle this ? -- 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>