Re: xfs: two deadlock problems occur when kswapd writebacks XFS pages.

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On Tue, 17 Jun 2014 23:26:09 +1000 Dave Chinner wrote:
On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 05:50:02PM +0900, Masayoshi Mizuma wrote:
I found two deadlock problems occur when kswapd writebacks XFS pages.
I detected these problems on RHEL kernel actually, and I suppose these
also happen on upstream kernel (3.16-rc1).

1.

A process (processA) has acquired read semaphore "xfs_cil.xc_ctx_lock"
at xfs_log_commit_cil() and it is waiting for the kswapd. Then, a
kworker has issued xlog_cil_push_work() and it is waiting for acquiring
the write semaphore. kswapd is waiting for acquiring the read semaphore
at xfs_log_commit_cil() because the kworker has been waiting before for
acquiring the write semaphore at xlog_cil_push(). Therefore, a deadlock
happens.

The deadlock flow is as follows.

   processA              | kworker                  | kswapd
   ----------------------+--------------------------+----------------------
| xfs_trans_commit      |                          |
| xfs_log_commit_cil    |                          |
| down_read(xc_ctx_lock)|                          |
| xlog_cil_insert_items |                          |
| xlog_cil_insert_format_items                     |
| kmem_alloc            |                          |
| :                     |                          |
| shrink_inactive_list  |                          |
| congestion_wait       |                          |
| # waiting for kswapd..|                          |
|                       | xlog_cil_push_work       |
|                       | xlog_cil_push            |
|                       | xfs_trans_commit         |
|                       | down_write(xc_ctx_lock)  |
|                       | # waiting for processA...|
|                       |                          | shrink_page_list
|                       |                          | xfs_vm_writepage
|                       |                          | xfs_map_blocks
|                       |                          | xfs_iomap_write_allocate
|                       |                          | xfs_trans_commit
|                       |                          | xfs_log_commit_cil
|                       |                          | down_read(xc_ctx_lock)
V(time)                 |                          | # waiting for kworker...
   ----------------------+--------------------------+-----------------------

Where's the deadlock here? congestion_wait() simply times out and
processA continues onward doing memory reclaim. It should continue
making progress, albeit slowly, and if it isn't then the allocation
will fail. If the allocation repeatedly fails then you should be
seeing this in the logs:

XFS: possible memory allocation deadlock in <func> (mode:0x%x)

If you aren't seeing that in the logs a few times a second and never
stopping, then the system is still making progress and isn't
deadlocked.

processA is stuck at following while loop. In this situation,
too_many_isolated() always returns true because kswapd is also stuck...

---
static noinline_for_stack unsigned long
shrink_inactive_list(unsigned long nr_to_scan, struct lruvec *lruvec,
                     struct scan_control *sc, enum lru_list lru)
{
...
        while (unlikely(too_many_isolated(zone, file, sc))) {
                congestion_wait(BLK_RW_ASYNC, HZ/10);

                /* We are about to die and free our memory. Return now. */
                if (fatal_signal_pending(current))
                        return SWAP_CLUSTER_MAX;
        }
---

On that point, this problem is similar to the problem fixed by
the following commit.

1f6d64829d xfs: block allocation work needs to be kswapd aware

So, the same solution, for example we add PF_KSWAPD to current->flags
before calling kmem_alloc(), may fix this problem1...


To fix this, should we up the read semaphore before calling kmem_alloc()
at xlog_cil_insert_format_items() to avoid blocking the kworker? Or,
should we the second argument of kmem_alloc() from KM_SLEEP|KM_NOFS
to KM_NOSLEEP to avoid waiting for the kswapd. Or...

Can't do that - it's in transaction context and so reclaim can't
recurse into the fs. Even if you do remove the flag, kmem_alloc()
will re-add the GFP_NOFS silently because of the PF_FSTRANS flag on
the task, so it won't affect anything...

I think kmem_alloc() doesn't re-add the GFP_NOFS if the second argument
is set to KM_NOSLEEP. kmem_alloc() will re-add GFP_ATOMIC and __GFP_NOWARN.

---
static inline gfp_t
kmem_flags_convert(xfs_km_flags_t flags)
{
        gfp_t   lflags;

        BUG_ON(flags & ~(KM_SLEEP|KM_NOSLEEP|KM_NOFS|KM_MAYFAIL|KM_ZERO));

        if (flags & KM_NOSLEEP) {
                lflags = GFP_ATOMIC | __GFP_NOWARN;
        } else {
                lflags = GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_NOWARN;
                if ((current->flags & PF_FSTRANS) || (flags & KM_NOFS))
                        lflags &= ~__GFP_FS;
        }

        if (flags & KM_ZERO)
                lflags |= __GFP_ZERO;

        return lflags;
}
---


We might be able to do a down_write_trylock() in xlog_cil_push(),
but we can't delay the push for an arbitrary amount of time - the
write lock needs to be a barrier otherwise we'll get push
starvation and that will lead to checkpoint size overruns (i.e.
temporary journal corruption).

I understand, thanks.


2.

A kworker (kworkerA), whish is a writeback thread, is waiting for
the XFS allocation thread (kworkerB) while it writebacks XFS pages.
kworkerB has started the allocation and it is waiting for kswapd to
allocate free pages. kswapd has started writeback XFS pages and
it is waiting for more log space. The reason why exhaustion of the
log space is both the writeback thread and kswapd are stuck, so
some processes, who have allocated the log space and are requesting
free pages, are also stuck.

The deadlock flow is as follows.

   kworkerA              | kworkerB                 | kswapd
   ----------------------+--------------------------+-----------------------
| wb_writeback          |                          |
| :                     |                          |
| xfs_vm_writepage      |                          |
| xfs_map_blocks        |                          |
| xfs_iomap_write_allocate                         |
| xfs_bmapi_write       |                          |
| xfs_bmapi_allocate    |                          |
| wait_for_completion   |                          |
| # waiting for kworkerB...                        |
|                       | xfs_bmapi_allocate_worker|
|                       | :                        |
|                       | xfs_buf_get_map          |
|                       | xfs_buf_allocate_memory  |
|                       | alloc_pages_current      |
|                       | :                        |
|                       | shrink_inactive_list     |
|                       | congestion_wait          |
|                       | # waiting for kswapd...  |
|                       |                          | shrink_page_list
|                       |                          | xfs_vm_writepage
|                       |                          | :
|                       |                          | xfs_log_reserve
|                       |                          | :
|                       |                          | xlog_grant_head_check
|                       |                          | xlog_grant_head_wait
|                       |                          | # waiting for more
|                       |                          | # space...
V(time)                 |                          |
   ----------------------+--------------------------+-----------------------

Again, anything in congestion_wait() is not stuck and if the
allocations here are repeatedly failing and progress is not being
made, then there should be log messages from XFS indicating this.

kworkerB is stuck at the same reason as above processA.


I need more information about your test setup to understand what is
going on here. Can you provide:

http://xfs.org/index.php/XFS_FAQ#Q:_What_information_should_I_include_when_reporting_a_problem.3F

The output of sysrq-w would also be useful here, because the above
abridged stack traces do not tell me everything about the state of
the system I need to know.

OK, I will try to get the information when this problem2 is reproduced.

Thanks,
Masayoshi Mizuma

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