linux-kernel - Re: deadlock on vmap_area

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Date:	Wed, 1 May 2013 10:01:41 -0700 (PDT)
From:	David Rientjes <rientjes@...gle.com>
To:	Shawn Bohrer <sbohrer@...advisors.com>
cc:	xfs@....sgi.com, linux-mm@...ck.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: deadlock on vmap_area_lock

On Wed, 1 May 2013, Shawn Bohrer wrote:

> Correct it doesn't and I can't prove the find command is not making
> progress, however these finds normally complete in under 15 min and
> we've let the stuck ones run for days.  Additionally if this was just
> contention I'd expect to see multiple threads/CPUs contending and I
> only have a single CPU pegged running find at 99%. I should clarify
> that the perf snippet above was for the entire system.  Profiling just
> the find command shows:
> 
>     82.56%     find  [kernel.kallsyms]  [k] _raw_spin_lock

Couple of options to figure out what spinlock this is: use lockstat (see 
Documentation/lockstat.txt), which will also require a kernel rebuild, 
some human intervention to collect the stats, and the accompanying 
performance degradation, or you could try collecting
/proc/$(pidof find)/stack at regular intervals and figure out which 
spinlock it is.

> > Depending on your 
> > definition of "occassionally", would it be possible to run with 
> > CONFIG_PROVE_LOCKING and CONFIG_LOCKDEP to see if it uncovers any real 
> > deadlock potential?
> 
> Yeah, I can probably enable these on a few machines and hope I get
> lucky.  These machines are used for real work so I'll have to gauge
> what how significant the performance impact is to determine how many
> machines I can sacrifice to the cause.
> 

You'll probably only need to enable it on one machine, if a deadlock 
possibility exists here then lockdep will find it even without hitting it, 
it simply has to exercise the path that leads to it.  It does have a 
performance degradation for that one machine, though.
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