linux-kernel - Re: [RFC] Reproducible OOM with partial workaround

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Date:	Sat, 12 Jan 2013 14:24:07 +1100
From:	paul.szabo@...ney.edu.au
To:	akpm@...ux-foundation.org
Cc:	695182@...s.debian.org, dave@...ux.vnet.ibm.com,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-mm@...ck.org
Subject: Re: [RFC] Reproducible OOM with partial workaround

Dear Andrew,

>>> Check /proc/slabinfo, see if all your lowmem got eaten up by buffer_heads.
>> Please see below ...
> ... Was this dump taken when the system was at or near oom?

No, that was a "quiescent" machine. Please see a just-before-OOM dump in
my next message (in a little while).

> Please send a copy of the oom-killer kernel message dump, if you still
> have one.

Please see one in next message, or in
http://bugs.debian.org/695182

>> I tried setting dirty_ratio to "funny" values, that did not seem to
>> help.
> Did you try setting it as low as possible?

Probably. Maybe. Sorry, cannot say with certainty.

>> Did you notice my patch about bdi_position_ratio(), how it was
>> plain wrong half the time (for negative x)? 
> Nope, please resend.

Quoting from
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?msg=101;att=1;bug=695182
:
...
 - In bdi_position_ratio() get difference (setpoint-dirty) right even
   when it is negative, which happens often. Normally these numbers are
   "small" and even with left-shift I never observed a 32-bit overflow.
   I believe it should be possible to re-write the whole function in
   32-bit ints; maybe it is not worth the effort to make it "efficient";
   seeing how this function was always wrong and we survived, it should
   simply be removed.
...
--- mm/page-writeback.c.old	2012-10-17 13:50:15.000000000 +1100
+++ mm/page-writeback.c	2013-01-06 21:54:59.000000000 +1100
[ Line numbers out because other patches not shown ]
...
@@ -559,7 +578,7 @@ static unsigned long bdi_position_ratio(
 	 *     => fast response on large errors; small oscillation near setpoint
 	 */
 	setpoint = (freerun + limit) / 2;
-	x = div_s64((setpoint - dirty) << RATELIMIT_CALC_SHIFT,
+	x = div_s64(((s64)setpoint - (s64)dirty) << RATELIMIT_CALC_SHIFT,
 		    limit - setpoint + 1);
 	pos_ratio = x;
 	pos_ratio = pos_ratio * x >> RATELIMIT_CALC_SHIFT;
...

Cheers, Paul

Paul Szabo   psz@...hs.usyd.edu.au   http://www.maths.usyd.edu.au/u/psz/
School of Mathematics and Statistics   University of Sydney    Australia
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/