Date:	Tue, 20 Apr 2010 09:20:57 +0100
From:	Mel Gorman <mel@....ul.ie>
To:	Minchan Kim <minchan.kim@...il.com>
Cc:	KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@...fujitsu.com>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, akpm@...ux-foundation.org,
	"linux-mm@...ck.org" <linux-mm@...ck.org>,
	"kosaki.motohiro@...fujitsu.com" <kosaki.motohiro@...fujitsu.com>
Subject: Re: error at compaction (Re: mmotm 2010-04-15-14-42 uploaded

On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 11:39:46AM +0900, Minchan Kim wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 4:39 AM, Mel Gorman <mel@....ul.ie> wrote:
> > On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 07:14:42PM +0100, Mel Gorman wrote:
> >> On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 07:01:33PM +0900, KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki wrote:
> >> >
> >> > mmotm 2010-04-15-14-42
> >> >
> >> > When I tried
> >> >  # echo 0 > /proc/sys/vm/compaction
> >> >
> >> > I see following.
> >> >
> >> > My enviroment was
> >> >   2.6.34-rc4-mm1+ (2010-04-15-14-42) (x86-64) CPUx8
> >> >   allocating tons of hugepages and reduce free memory.
> >> >
> >> > What I did was:
> >> >   # echo 0 > /proc/sys/vm/compact_memory
> >> >
> >> > Hmm, I see this kind of error at migation for the 1st time..
> >> > my.config is attached. Hmm... ?
> >> >
> >> > (I'm sorry I'll be offline soon.)
> >>
> >> That's ok, thanks you for the report. I'm afraid I made little progress
> >> as I spent most of the day on other bugs but I do have something for
> >> you.
> >>
> >> First, I reproduced the problem using your .config. However, the problem does
> >> not manifest with the .config I normally use which is derived from the distro
> >> kernel configuration (Debian Lenny). So, there is something in your .config
> >> that triggers the problem. I very strongly suspect this is an interaction
> >> between migration, compaction and page allocation debug.
> >
> > I unexpecedly had the time to dig into this. Does the following patch fix
> > your problem? It Worked For Me.
> 
> Nice catch during shot time. Below is comment.
> 
> >
> > ==== CUT HERE ====
> > mm,compaction: Map free pages in the address space after they get split for compaction
> >
> > split_free_page() is a helper function which takes a free page from the
> > buddy lists and splits it into order-0 pages. It is used by memory
> > compaction to build a list of destination pages. If
> > CONFIG_DEBUG_PAGEALLOC is set, a kernel paging request bug is triggered
> > because split_free_page() did not call the arch-allocation hooks or map
> > the page into the kernel address space.
> >
> > This patch does not update split_free_page() as it is called with
> > interrupts held. Instead it documents that callers of split_free_page()
> > are responsible for calling the arch hooks and to map the page and fixes
> > compaction.
> 
> Dumb question. Why can't we call arch_alloc_page and kernel_map_pages
> as interrupt disabled?

In theory, it isn't known what arch_alloc_page is going to do but more
practically kernel_map_pages() is updating mappings and should be
flushing all the TLBs. It can't do that with interrupts disabled.

I checked X86 and it should be fine but only because it flushes the
local CPU and appears to just hope for the best that this doesn't cause
problems.

> It's deadlock issue or latency issue?

deadlock

> I don't found any comment about it.

I'm not aware of any. arch_alloc_page() is only used by s390 so it's not
well known. kernel_map_pages() is only active for a rarely used
debugging option.

> It should have added the comment around that functions. :)
> 
> And now compaction only uses split_free_page and it is exposed by mm.h.
> I think it would be better to map pages inside split_free_page to
> export others.(ie, making generic function).

I considered that and it would not be ideal. It would have to disable and
reenable interrupts as each page is taken from the list or alternatively
require that the caller not have the zone lock taken. The latter of these
options is more reasonable but would still result in more interrupt enabling
and disabling.

split_free_page() is extremely specialised and requires knowledge of the
page allocator internals to call properly. There is little pressure to
make this easier to use at the cost of increased locking.

> If we can't do, how about making split_free_page static as static function?
> And only uses it in compaction.
> 

It pretty much has to be in page_alloc.c because it uses internal
functions of the page allocator - e.g. rmv_page_order. I could move it
to mm/internal.h because whatever about split_page, I can't imagine why
anyone else would need to call split_free_page.

-- 
Mel Gorman
Part-time Phd Student                          Linux Technology Center
University of Limerick                         IBM Dublin Software Lab
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