linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] mm-add-vfree

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Date:   Tue, 13 Dec 2016 19:02:23 -0800
From:   Andy Lutomirski <luto@...capital.net>
To:     Andrey Ryabinin <aryabinin@...tuozzo.com>
Cc:     Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>,
        Johannes Weiner <hannes@...xchg.org>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Huang Ying <ying.huang@...ux.intel.com>,
        Stephen Rothwell <sfr@...b.auug.org.au>,
        Christoph Hellwig <hch@....de>,
        Joel Fernandes <joelaf@...gle.com>,
        Jisheng Zhang <jszhang@...vell.com>,
        Chris Wilson <chris@...is-wilson.co.uk>,
        John Dias <joaodias@...gle.com>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>, Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>,
        "linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        LKP <lkp@...org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] mm-add-vfree_atomic-fix

On Tue, Dec 13, 2016 at 11:21 AM, Andrey Ryabinin
<aryabinin@...tuozzo.com> wrote:
> On 12/13/2016 09:15 PM, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
>
>
>>>>
>>>> But not quite acked by me.  What happened to the vfree code that
>>>> causes vfree_deferred to be called in a preemptable context?  That
>>>> sounds like a bug.
>>>
>>> Not sure I understand but the above stack points to a preemptible
>>> context (copy_process). My stack was different and it looks preemptible as well.
>>> free_thread_stack calls vfree_atomic unconditionally. So I am not sure
>>> why do you think this is a bug?
>>>
>>>> (This code doesn't exist in Linus' tree.  What tree does this apply to.)
>>>
>>> Anyway, now that I am looking at Andrew's tree I can see [1] which
>>> doesn't have this_cpu_ptr. So I am not sure where this this_cpu_ptr came
>>> from. Maybe the previous version of the patch which has shown up in the
>>> linux-next and Andrew has picked up [2] in the meantime. /me confused
>>>
>>> [1] http://www.ozlabs.org/~akpm/mmotm/broken-out/mm-add-vfree_atomic.patch
>>> [2] http://lkml.kernel.org/r/1481553981-3856-1-git-send-email-aryabinin@virtuozzo.com
>>
>> The underlying issue seems to be that we have this shiny new function
>> vfree_atomic() which doesn't work in *non-atomic* context and that we
>
> It does work non-atomic context. It's fixed now.
>
>> have "kernel/fork: use vfree_atomic() to free thread stack" that calls
>> vfree_atomic() from non-atomic context.
>
> From both context actually. Usually task stack is freed from atomic context:
>         http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20161019111541.GQ29358@nuc-i3427.alporthouse.com
>         http://lkml.kernel.org/r/CALCETrVqjejgpQVUdem8RK3uxdEgfOZy4cOJqJQjCLtBDnJfyQ@mail.gmail.com
>
> On rare occasions it can be freed from non-atomic context, e.g. error path in copy_process().
>
>> I'm not sure what the motivation of the latter patch was, but ISTM we
>> should revert it.  TBH I'm not quite sure what the purpose of
>> splitting vfree() and vfree_atomic() was, but I'm not seeing any
>> reason that the common case of freeing stacks from non-atomic context
>> should defer the free instead of just doing it right away.
>>
>> Andrey, Johannes, why should task stack freeing use vfree_atomic() in
>> the first place?
>
> Because vfree() now can sleep and task stack freeing usually done in atomic context.
>
>

Fair enough.

-- 
Andy Lutomirski
AMA Capital Management, LLC