linux-kernel - [PATCH] writeback: fix negative bdi max pause

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Date:	Sat, 12 Oct 2013 08:43:55 +0800
From:	Fengguang Wu <fengguang.wu@...el.com>
To:	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:	Toralf Förster <toralf.foerster@....de>,
	Richard Weinberger <richard@....at>, Jan Kara <jack@...e.cz>,
	Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@...ux-m68k.org>,
	UML devel <user-mode-linux-devel@...ts.sourceforge.net>,
	"linux-mm@...ck.org" <linux-mm@...ck.org>,
	"linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	hannes@...xchg.org, darrick.wong@...cle.com,
	Michal Hocko <mhocko@...e.cz>
Subject: [PATCH] writeback: fix negative bdi max pause

Toralf runs trinity on UML/i386.
After some time it hangs and the last message line is

	BUG: soft lockup - CPU#0 stuck for 22s! [trinity-child0:1521]

It's found that pages_dirtied becomes very large.
More than 1000000000 pages in this case:

	period = HZ * pages_dirtied / task_ratelimit;
	BUG_ON(pages_dirtied > 2000000000);
	BUG_ON(pages_dirtied > 1000000000);      <---------

UML debug printf shows that we got negative pause here:

	ick: pause : -984
	ick: pages_dirtied : 0
	ick: task_ratelimit: 0

	 pause:
	+       if (pause < 0)  {
	+               extern int printf(char *, ...);
	+               printf("ick : pause : %li\n", pause);
	+               printf("ick: pages_dirtied : %lu\n", pages_dirtied);
	+               printf("ick: task_ratelimit: %lu\n", task_ratelimit);
	+               BUG_ON(1);
	+       }
	        trace_balance_dirty_pages(bdi,

Since pause is bounded by [min_pause, max_pause] where min_pause is also
bounded by max_pause. It's suspected and demonstrated that the max_pause
calculation goes wrong:

	ick: pause : -717
	ick: min_pause : -177
	ick: max_pause : -717
	ick: pages_dirtied : 14
	ick: task_ratelimit: 0

The problem lies in the two "long = unsigned long" assignments in
bdi_max_pause() which might go negative if the highest bit is 1, and
the min_t(long, ...) check failed to protect it falling under 0. Fix
all of them by using "unsigned long" throughout the function.

Reported-by: Toralf Förster <toralf.foerster@....de>
Tested-by: Toralf Förster <toralf.foerster@....de>
Signed-off-by: Fengguang Wu <fengguang.wu@...el.com>
---
 mm/page-writeback.c |   10 +++++-----
 mm/readahead.c      |    2 +-
 2 files changed, 6 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)

diff --git a/mm/page-writeback.c b/mm/page-writeback.c
index 3f0c895..241a746 100644
--- a/mm/page-writeback.c
+++ b/mm/page-writeback.c
@@ -1104,11 +1104,11 @@ static unsigned long dirty_poll_interval(unsigned long dirty,
 	return 1;
 }
 
-static long bdi_max_pause(struct backing_dev_info *bdi,
-			  unsigned long bdi_dirty)
+static unsigned long bdi_max_pause(struct backing_dev_info *bdi,
+				   unsigned long bdi_dirty)
 {
-	long bw = bdi->avg_write_bandwidth;
-	long t;
+	unsigned long bw = bdi->avg_write_bandwidth;
+	unsigned long t;
 
 	/*
 	 * Limit pause time for small memory systems. If sleeping for too long
@@ -1120,7 +1120,7 @@ static long bdi_max_pause(struct backing_dev_info *bdi,
 	t = bdi_dirty / (1 + bw / roundup_pow_of_two(1 + HZ / 8));
 	t++;
 
-	return min_t(long, t, MAX_PAUSE);
+	return min_t(unsigned long, t, MAX_PAUSE);
 }
 
 static long bdi_min_pause(struct backing_dev_info *bdi,
--
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