This is a note to let you know that I've just added the patch titled workqueue: cond_resched() after processing each work item to the 3.10-stable tree which can be found at: http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/stable-queue.git;a=summary The filename of the patch is: workqueue-cond_resched-after-processing-each-work-item.patch and it can be found in the queue-3.10 subdirectory. If you, or anyone else, feels it should not be added to the stable tree, please let <stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> know about it. >From b22ce2785d97423846206cceec4efee0c4afd980 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Tejun Heo <tj@xxxxxxxxxx> Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2013 17:33:37 -0400 Subject: workqueue: cond_resched() after processing each work item From: Tejun Heo <tj@xxxxxxxxxx> commit b22ce2785d97423846206cceec4efee0c4afd980 upstream. If !PREEMPT, a kworker running work items back to back can hog CPU. This becomes dangerous when a self-requeueing work item which is waiting for something to happen races against stop_machine. Such self-requeueing work item would requeue itself indefinitely hogging the kworker and CPU it's running on while stop_machine would wait for that CPU to enter stop_machine while preventing anything else from happening on all other CPUs. The two would deadlock. Jamie Liu reports that this deadlock scenario exists around scsi_requeue_run_queue() and libata port multiplier support, where one port may exclude command processing from other ports. With the right timing, scsi_requeue_run_queue() can end up requeueing itself trying to execute an IO which is asked to be retried while another device has an exclusive access, which in turn can't make forward progress due to stop_machine. Fix it by invoking cond_resched() after executing each work item. Signed-off-by: Tejun Heo <tj@xxxxxxxxxx> Reported-by: Jamie Liu <jamieliu@xxxxxxxxxx> References: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1552567 Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- kernel/workqueue.c | 9 +++++++++ 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+) --- a/kernel/workqueue.c +++ b/kernel/workqueue.c @@ -2188,6 +2188,15 @@ __acquires(&pool->lock) dump_stack(); } + /* + * The following prevents a kworker from hogging CPU on !PREEMPT + * kernels, where a requeueing work item waiting for something to + * happen could deadlock with stop_machine as such work item could + * indefinitely requeue itself while all other CPUs are trapped in + * stop_machine. + */ + cond_resched(); + spin_lock_irq(&pool->lock); /* clear cpu intensive status */ Patches currently in stable-queue which might be from tj@xxxxxxxxxx are queue-3.10/workqueue-cond_resched-after-processing-each-work-item.patch -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe stable" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html