Shortly before 3.16-rc1, Dave Jones reported: WARNING: CPU: 3 PID: 19721 at fs/xfs/xfs_aops.c:971 xfs_vm_writepage+0x5ce/0x630 [xfs]() CPU: 3 PID: 19721 Comm: trinity-c61 Not tainted 3.15.0+ #3 Call Trace: [<ffffffffc023068e>] xfs_vm_writepage+0x5ce/0x630 [xfs] [<ffffffff8316f759>] shrink_page_list+0x8f9/0xb90 [<ffffffff83170123>] shrink_inactive_list+0x253/0x510 [<ffffffff83170c93>] shrink_lruvec+0x563/0x6c0 [<ffffffff83170e2b>] shrink_zone+0x3b/0x100 [<ffffffff831710e1>] shrink_zones+0x1f1/0x3c0 [<ffffffff83171414>] try_to_free_pages+0x164/0x380 [<ffffffff83163e52>] __alloc_pages_nodemask+0x822/0xc90 [<ffffffff831abeff>] alloc_pages_vma+0xaf/0x1c0 [<ffffffff8318a931>] handle_mm_fault+0xa31/0xc50 etc. 970 if (WARN_ON_ONCE((current->flags & (PF_MEMALLOC|PF_KSWAPD)) == 971 PF_MEMALLOC)) I did not respond at the time, because a glance at the PageDirty block in shrink_page_list() quickly shows that this is impossible: we don't do writeback on file pages (other than tmpfs) from direct reclaim nowadays. Dave was hallucinating, but it would have been disrespectful to say so. However, my own /var/log/messages now shows similar complaints WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 28814 at fs/ext4/inode.c:1881 ext4_writepage+0xa7/0x38b() WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 27347 at fs/ext4/inode.c:1764 ext4_writepage+0xa7/0x38b() from stressing some mmotm trees during July. Could a dirty xfs or ext4 file page somehow get marked PageSwapBacked, so fail shrink_page_list()'s page_is_file_cache() test, and so proceed to mapping->a_ops->writepage()? Yes, 3.16-rc1's 68711a746345 ("mm, migration: add destination page freeing callback") has provided such a way to compaction: if migrating a SwapBacked page fails, its newpage may be put back on the list for later use with PageSwapBacked still set, and nothing will clear it. Whether that can do anything worse than issue WARN_ON_ONCEs, and get some statistics wrong, is unclear: easier to fix than to think through the consequences. Fixing it here, before the put_new_page(), addresses the bug directly, but is probably the worst place to fix it. Page migration is doing too many parts of the job on too many levels: fixing it in move_to_new_page() to complement its SetPageSwapBacked would be preferable, except why is it (and newpage->mapping and newpage->index) done there, rather than down in migrate_page_move_mapping(), once we are sure of success? Not a cleanup to get into right now, especially not with memcg cleanups coming in 3.17. Reported-by: Dave Jones <davej@xxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Hugh Dickins <hughd@xxxxxxxxxx> --- mm/migrate.c | 5 +++-- 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) --- 3.16-rc6/mm/migrate.c 2014-06-29 15:22:10.584003935 -0700 +++ linux/mm/migrate.c 2014-07-26 11:28:34.488126591 -0700 @@ -988,9 +988,10 @@ out: * it. Otherwise, putback_lru_page() will drop the reference grabbed * during isolation. */ - if (rc != MIGRATEPAGE_SUCCESS && put_new_page) + if (rc != MIGRATEPAGE_SUCCESS && put_new_page) { + ClearPageSwapBacked(newpage); put_new_page(newpage, private); - else + } else putback_lru_page(newpage); if (result) { -- 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>