Hi Mel,
On Thu, Nov 01, 2012 at 08:28:14AM +0000, Mel Gorman wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 09:48:57PM -0700, David Rientjes wrote:
> > On Thu, 1 Nov 2012, Minchan Kim wrote:
> >
> > > It's not true any more.
> > > 3.6 includes following code in try_to_free_pages
> > >
> > > /*
> > > * Do not enter reclaim if fatal signal is pending. 1 is returned so
> > > * that the page allocator does not consider triggering OOM
> > > */
> > > if (fatal_signal_pending(current))
> > > return 1;
> > >
> > > So the hunged task never go to the OOM path and could be looping forever.
> > >
> >
> > Ah, interesting. This is from commit 5515061d22f0 ("mm: throttle direct
> > reclaimers if PF_MEMALLOC reserves are low and swap is backed by network
> > storage"). Thanks for adding Mel to the cc.
> >
>
> Indeed, thanks.
>
> > The oom killer specifically has logic for this condition: when calling
> > out_of_memory() the first thing it does is
> >
> > if (fatal_signal_pending(current))
> > set_thread_flag(TIF_MEMDIE);
> >
> > to allow it access to memory reserves so that it may exit if it's having
> > trouble. But that ends up never happening because of the above code that
> > Minchan has identified.
> >
> > So we either need to do set_thread_flag(TIF_MEMDIE) in try_to_free_pages()
> > as well or revert that early return entirely; there's no justification
> > given for it in the comment nor in the commit log.
>
> The check for fatal signal is in the wrong place. The reason it was added
> is because a throttled process sleeps in an interruptible sleep. If a user
> user forcibly kills a throttled process, it should not result in an OOM kill.
>
> > I'd rather remove it
> > and allow the oom killer to trigger and grant access to memory reserves
> > itself if necessary.
> >
> > Mel, how does commit 5515061d22f0 deal with threads looping forever if
> > they need memory in the exit path since the oom killer never gets called?
> >
>
> It doesn't. How about this?
>
> ---8<---
> mm: vmscan: Check for fatal signals iff the process was throttled
>
> commit 5515061d22f0 ("mm: throttle direct reclaimers if PF_MEMALLOC reserves
> are low and swap is backed by network storage") introduced a check for
> fatal signals after a process gets throttled for network storage. The
> intention was that if a process was throttled and got killed that it
> should not trigger the OOM killer. As pointed out by Minchan Kim and
> David Rientjes, this check is in the wrong place and too broad. If a
> system is in am OOM situation and a process is exiting, it can loop in
> __alloc_pages_slowpath() and calling direct reclaim in a loop. As the
> fatal signal is pending it returns 1 as if it is making forward progress
> and can effectively deadlock.
>
> This patch moves the fatal_signal_pending() check after throttling to
> throttle_direct_reclaim() where it belongs.
I'm not sure how below patch achieve your goal which is to prevent
unnecessary OOM kill if throttled process is killed by user during
throttling. If I misunderstood your goal, please correct me and
write down it in description for making it more clear.
If user kills throttled process, throttle_direct_reclaim returns true by
this patch so try_to_free_pages returns 1. It means it doesn't call OOM
in first path of reclaim but shortly it will try to reclaim again
by should_alloc_retry. And since this second path, throttle_direct_reclaim
will continue to return false so that it could end up calling OOM kill.
Is it a your intention? If so, what's different with old version?
This patch just delay OOM kill so what's benefit does it has?
>
> If this patch passes review it should be considered a -stable candidate
> for 3.6.
>
> Signed-off-by: Mel Gorman <mgorman@xxxxxxx>
> ---
> mm/vmscan.c | 37 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++----------
> 1 file changed, 27 insertions(+), 10 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/mm/vmscan.c b/mm/vmscan.c
> index 2b7edfa..ca9e37f 100644
> --- a/mm/vmscan.c
> +++ b/mm/vmscan.c
> @@ -2238,9 +2238,12 @@ static bool pfmemalloc_watermark_ok(pg_data_t *pgdat)
> * Throttle direct reclaimers if backing storage is backed by the network
> * and the PFMEMALLOC reserve for the preferred node is getting dangerously
> * depleted. kswapd will continue to make progress and wake the processes
> - * when the low watermark is reached
> + * when the low watermark is reached.
> + *
> + * Returns true if a fatal signal was delivered during throttling. If this
> + * happens, the page allocator should not consider triggering the OOM killer.
> */
> -static void throttle_direct_reclaim(gfp_t gfp_mask, struct zonelist *zonelist,
> +static bool throttle_direct_reclaim(gfp_t gfp_mask, struct zonelist *zonelist,
> nodemask_t *nodemask)
> {
> struct zone *zone;
> @@ -2255,13 +2258,20 @@ static void throttle_direct_reclaim(gfp_t gfp_mask, struct zonelist *zonelist,
> * processes to block on log_wait_commit().
> */
> if (current->flags & PF_KTHREAD)
> - return;
> + goto out;
> +
> + /*
> + * If a fatal signal is pending, this process should not throttle.
> + * It should return quickly so it can exit and free its memory
> + */
> + if (fatal_signal_pending(current))
> + goto out;
>
> /* Check if the pfmemalloc reserves are ok */
> first_zones_zonelist(zonelist, high_zoneidx, NULL, &zone);
> pgdat = zone->zone_pgdat;
> if (pfmemalloc_watermark_ok(pgdat))
> - return;
> + goto out;
>
> /* Account for the throttling */
> count_vm_event(PGSCAN_DIRECT_THROTTLE);
> @@ -2277,12 +2287,20 @@ static void throttle_direct_reclaim(gfp_t gfp_mask, struct zonelist *zonelist,
> if (!(gfp_mask & __GFP_FS)) {
> wait_event_interruptible_timeout(pgdat->pfmemalloc_wait,
> pfmemalloc_watermark_ok(pgdat), HZ);
> - return;
> +
> + goto check_pending;
> }
>
> /* Throttle until kswapd wakes the process */
> wait_event_killable(zone->zone_pgdat->pfmemalloc_wait,
> pfmemalloc_watermark_ok(pgdat));
> +
> +check_pending:
> + if (fatal_signal_pending(current))
> + return true;
> +
> +out:
> + return false;
> }
>
> unsigned long try_to_free_pages(struct zonelist *zonelist, int order,
> @@ -2304,13 +2322,12 @@ unsigned long try_to_free_pages(struct zonelist *zonelist, int order,
> .gfp_mask = sc.gfp_mask,
> };
>
> - throttle_direct_reclaim(gfp_mask, zonelist, nodemask);
> -
> /*
> - * Do not enter reclaim if fatal signal is pending. 1 is returned so
> - * that the page allocator does not consider triggering OOM
> + * Do not enter reclaim if fatal signal was delivered while throttled.
> + * 1 is returned so that the page allocator does not OOM kill at this
> + * point.
> */
> - if (fatal_signal_pending(current))
> + if (throttle_direct_reclaim(gfp_mask, zonelist, nodemask))
> return 1;
>
> trace_mm_vmscan_direct_reclaim_begin(order,
>
> --
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--
Kind regards,
Minchan Kim
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