From: Joonsoo Kim <iamjoonsoo.kim@xxxxxxx> commit 474750aba88817c53f39424e5567b8e4acc4b39b upstream. Richard Yao reported a month ago that his system have a trouble with vmap_area_lock contention during performance analysis by /proc/meminfo. Andrew asked why his analysis checks /proc/meminfo stressfully, but he didn't answer it. https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/4/10/416 Although I'm not sure that this is right usage or not, there is a solution reducing vmap_area_lock contention with no side-effect. That is just to use rcu list iterator in get_vmalloc_info(). rcu can be used in this function because all RCU protocol is already respected by writers, since Nick Piggin commit db64fe02258f1 ("mm: rewrite vmap layer") back in linux-2.6.28 Specifically : insertions use list_add_rcu(), deletions use list_del_rcu() and kfree_rcu(). Note the rb tree is not used from rcu reader (it would not be safe), only the vmap_area_list has full RCU protection. Note that __purge_vmap_area_lazy() already uses this rcu protection. rcu_read_lock(); list_for_each_entry_rcu(va, &vmap_area_list, list) { if (va->flags & VM_LAZY_FREE) { if (va->va_start < *start) *start = va->va_start; if (va->va_end > *end) *end = va->va_end; nr += (va->va_end - va->va_start) >> PAGE_SHIFT; list_add_tail(&va->purge_list, &valist); va->flags |= VM_LAZY_FREEING; va->flags &= ~VM_LAZY_FREE; } } rcu_read_unlock(); Peter: : While rcu list traversal over the vmap_area_list is safe, this may : arrive at different results than the spinlocked version. The rcu list : traversal version will not be a 'snapshot' of a single, valid instant : of the entire vmap_area_list, but rather a potential amalgam of : different list states. Joonsoo: : Yes, you are right, but I don't think that we should be strict here. : Meminfo is already not a 'snapshot' at specific time. While we try to get : certain stats, the other stats can change. And, although we may arrive at : different results than the spinlocked version, the difference would not be : large and would not make serious side-effect. [edumazet@xxxxxxxxxx: add more commit description] Signed-off-by: Joonsoo Kim <iamjoonsoo.kim@xxxxxxx> Reported-by: Richard Yao <ryao@xxxxxxxxxx> Acked-by: Eric Dumazet <edumazet@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Peter Hurley <peter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Zhang Yanfei <zhangyanfei.yes@xxxxxxxxx> Cc: Johannes Weiner <hannes@xxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Andi Kleen <andi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Mel Gorman <mgorman@xxxxxxx> --- mm/vmalloc.c | 6 +++--- 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/mm/vmalloc.c b/mm/vmalloc.c index e2be0f8..060dc36 100644 --- a/mm/vmalloc.c +++ b/mm/vmalloc.c @@ -2685,14 +2685,14 @@ void get_vmalloc_info(struct vmalloc_info *vmi) prev_end = VMALLOC_START; - spin_lock(&vmap_area_lock); + rcu_read_lock(); if (list_empty(&vmap_area_list)) { vmi->largest_chunk = VMALLOC_TOTAL; goto out; } - list_for_each_entry(va, &vmap_area_list, list) { + list_for_each_entry_rcu(va, &vmap_area_list, list) { unsigned long addr = va->va_start; /* @@ -2719,7 +2719,7 @@ void get_vmalloc_info(struct vmalloc_info *vmi) vmi->largest_chunk = VMALLOC_END - prev_end; out: - spin_unlock(&vmap_area_lock); + rcu_read_unlock(); } #endif -- 1.8.4.5 -- 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