linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] vmscan: add barrier to prevent evictable page in unevictable list

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Date:	Wed, 28 Sep 2011 10:14:52 +0200
From:	Johannes Weiner <jweiner@...hat.com>
To:	Minchan Kim <minchan.kim@...il.com>
Cc:	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	linux-mm <linux-mm@...ck.org>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@...fujitsu.com>,
	Mel Gorman <mel@....ul.ie>, Rik van Riel <riel@...hat.com>,
	Lee Schermerhorn <lee.schermerhorn@...com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] vmscan: add barrier to prevent evictable page in
 unevictable list

On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 10:45:30AM +0900, Minchan Kim wrote:
> When racing between putback_lru_page and shmem_unlock happens,
> progrom execution order is as follows, but clear_bit in processor #1
> could be reordered right before spin_unlock of processor #1.
> Then, the page would be stranded on the unevictable list.
> 
> spin_lock
> SetPageLRU
> spin_unlock
>                                 clear_bit(AS_UNEVICTABLE)
>                                 spin_lock
>                                 if PageLRU()
>                                         if !test_bit(AS_UNEVICTABLE)
>                                         	move evictable list
> smp_mb
> if !test_bit(AS_UNEVICTABLE)
>         move evictable list
>                                 spin_unlock
> 
> But, pagevec_lookup in scan_mapping_unevictable_pages has rcu_read_[un]lock so
> it could protect reordering before reaching test_bit(AS_UNEVICTABLE) on processor #1
> so this problem never happens. But it's a unexpected side effect and we should
> solve this problem properly.
> 
> This patch adds a barrier after mapping_clear_unevictable.
> 
> side-note: I didn't meet this problem but just found during review.
> 
> Cc: Johannes Weiner <jweiner@...hat.com>
> Cc: KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@...fujitsu.com>
> Cc: Mel Gorman <mel@....ul.ie>
> Cc: Rik van Riel <riel@...hat.com>
> Cc: Lee Schermerhorn <lee.schermerhorn@...com>
> Signed-off-by: Minchan Kim <minchan.kim@...il.com>
> ---
>  mm/shmem.c  |    1 +
>  mm/vmscan.c |   11 ++++++-----
>  2 files changed, 7 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/mm/shmem.c b/mm/shmem.c
> index 2d35772..22cb349 100644
> --- a/mm/shmem.c
> +++ b/mm/shmem.c
> @@ -1068,6 +1068,7 @@ int shmem_lock(struct file *file, int lock, struct user_struct *user)
>  		user_shm_unlock(inode->i_size, user);
>  		info->flags &= ~VM_LOCKED;
>  		mapping_clear_unevictable(file->f_mapping);
> +		smp_mb__after_clear_bit();
>  		scan_mapping_unevictable_pages(file->f_mapping);

I always get nervous when I see undocumented barriers.  Maybe add a
teensy tiny comment here?

	/*
	 * Ensure that a racing putback_lru_page() can see
	 * the pages of this mapping are evictable when we
	 * skip them due to !PageLRU during the scan.
	 */

Or something like that.  Otherwise, nice catch :-)

Acked-by: Johannes Weiner <jweiner@...hat.com>
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