linux-kernel - [PATCH 4.13 18/53] Revert "vmalloc: back off when the current task is killed"

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Date:   Mon, 16 Oct 2017 18:16:15 +0200
From:   Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>
To:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Cc:     Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        stable@...r.kernel.org, Johannes Weiner <hannes@...xchg.org>,
        Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>,
        Michal Hocko <mhocko@...e.com>,
        Alan Cox <alan@...yncelyn.cymru>,
        Christoph Hellwig <hch@....de>,
        Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@...gle.com>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Subject: [PATCH 4.13 18/53] Revert "vmalloc: back off when the current task is killed"

4.13-stable review patch.  If anyone has any objections, please let me know.

------------------

From: Johannes Weiner <hannes@...xchg.org>

commit b8c8a338f75e052d9fa2fed851259320af412e3f upstream.

This reverts commits 5d17a73a2ebe ("vmalloc: back off when the current
task is killed") and 171012f56127 ("mm: don't warn when vmalloc() fails
due to a fatal signal").

Commit 5d17a73a2ebe ("vmalloc: back off when the current task is
killed") made all vmalloc allocations from a signal-killed task fail.
We have seen crashes in the tty driver from this, where a killed task
exiting tries to switch back to N_TTY, fails n_tty_open because of the
vmalloc failing, and later crashes when dereferencing tty->disc_data.

Arguably, relying on a vmalloc() call to succeed in order to properly
exit a task is not the most robust way of doing things.  There will be a
follow-up patch to the tty code to fall back to the N_NULL ldisc.

But the justification to make that vmalloc() call fail like this isn't
convincing, either.  The patch mentions an OOM victim exhausting the
memory reserves and thus deadlocking the machine.  But the OOM killer is
only one, improbable source of fatal signals.  It doesn't make sense to
fail allocations preemptively with plenty of memory in most cases.

The patch doesn't mention real-life instances where vmalloc sites would
exhaust memory, which makes it sound more like a theoretical issue to
begin with.  But just in case, the OOM access to memory reserves has
been restricted on the allocator side in cd04ae1e2dc8 ("mm, oom: do not
rely on TIF_MEMDIE for memory reserves access"), which should take care
of any theoretical concerns on that front.

Revert this patch, and the follow-up that suppresses the allocation
warnings when we fail the allocations due to a signal.

Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20171004185906.GB2136@cmpxchg.org
Fixes:  171012f56127 ("mm: don't warn when vmalloc() fails due to a fatal signal")
Signed-off-by: Johannes Weiner <hannes@...xchg.org>
Acked-by: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>
Acked-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@...e.com>
Cc: Alan Cox <alan@...yncelyn.cymru>
Cc: Christoph Hellwig <hch@....de>
Cc: Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@...gle.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>

---
 mm/vmalloc.c |    6 ------
 1 file changed, 6 deletions(-)

--- a/mm/vmalloc.c
+++ b/mm/vmalloc.c
@@ -1697,11 +1697,6 @@ static void *__vmalloc_area_node(struct
 	for (i = 0; i < area->nr_pages; i++) {
 		struct page *page;

-		if (fatal_signal_pending(current)) {
-			area->nr_pages = i;
-			goto fail_no_warn;
-		}
-
 		if (node == NUMA_NO_NODE)
 			page = alloc_page(alloc_mask|highmem_mask);
 		else
@@ -1725,7 +1720,6 @@ fail:
 	warn_alloc(gfp_mask, NULL,
 			  "vmalloc: allocation failure, allocated %ld of %ld bytes",
 			  (area->nr_pages*PAGE_SIZE), area->size);
-fail_no_warn:
 	vfree(area->addr);
 	return NULL;
 }