linux-kernel - [PATCH v2] mm: avoid inconsistent "boosts" when updating the high and low watermarks

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Message-Id: <20190621153107.23667-1-alan.christopher.jenkins@gmail.com>
Date:   Fri, 21 Jun 2019 16:31:07 +0100
From:   Alan Jenkins <alan.christopher.jenkins@...il.com>
To:     linux-mm@...ck.org
Cc:     Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>,
        Mel Gorman <mgorman@...hsingularity.net>,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        Bharath Vedartham <linux.bhar@...il.com>,
        Alan Jenkins <alan.christopher.jenkins@...il.com>
Subject: [PATCH v2] mm: avoid inconsistent "boosts" when updating the high and low watermarks

When setting the low and high watermarks we use min_wmark_pages(zone).
I guess this was to reduce the line length.  Then this macro was modified
to include zone->watermark_boost.  So we needed to set watermark_boost
before we set the high and low watermarks... but we did not.

It seems mostly harmless.  It might set the watermarks a bit higher than
needed: when 1) the watermarks have been "boosted" and 2) you then
triggered __setup_per_zone_wmarks() (by setting one of the sysctls, or
hotplugging memory...).

I noticed it because it also breaks the documented equality
(high - low == low - min).  Below is an example of reproducing the bug.

First sample.  Equality is met (high - low == low - min):

Node 0, zone   Normal
  pages free     11962
        min      9531
        low      11913
        high     14295
        spanned  1173504
        present  1173504
        managed  1134235

A later sample.  Something has caused us to boost the watermarks:

Node 0, zone   Normal
  pages free     12614
        min      10043
        low      12425
        high     14807

Now trigger the watermarks to be recalculated.  "cd /proc/sys/vm" and
"cat watermark_scale_factor > watermark_scale_factor".  Then the watermarks
are boosted inconsistently.  The equality is broken:

Node 0, zone   Normal
  pages free     12412
        min      9531
        low      12425
        high     14807

14807 - 12425 = 2382
12425 -  9531 = 2894

Co-developed-by: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>
Signed-off-by: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>
Signed-off-by: Alan Jenkins <alan.christopher.jenkins@...il.com>
Fixes: 1c30844d2dfe ("mm: reclaim small amounts of memory when an external
                      fragmentation event occurs")
Acked-by: Mel Gorman <mgorman@...hsingularity.net>

---

Changes since v1:

Use Vlastimil's suggested code.  It is much cleaner, thanks :-).
I considered this "Co-developed-by" and s-o-b credit.

Update commit message to be specific about expected effects.

Node data is always allocated with kzalloc().  So there is no risk of
the code reading arbitrary unintialized data from ->watermark_boost,
the first time it is run.

AFAICT the bug is mostly harmless.  I do not require a -stable port.
I leave it to anyone else, if they think it's worth adding
"Cc: stable@...r.kernel.org".

 mm/page_alloc.c | 10 ++++++----
 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/mm/page_alloc.c b/mm/page_alloc.c
index c02cff1ed56e..01233705e490 100644
--- a/mm/page_alloc.c
+++ b/mm/page_alloc.c
@@ -7570,6 +7570,7 @@ static void __setup_per_zone_wmarks(void)

 	for_each_zone(zone) {
 		u64 tmp;
+		unsigned long wmark_min;

 		spin_lock_irqsave(&zone->lock, flags);
 		tmp = (u64)pages_min * zone_managed_pages(zone);
@@ -7588,13 +7589,13 @@ static void __setup_per_zone_wmarks(void)

 			min_pages = zone_managed_pages(zone) / 1024;
 			min_pages = clamp(min_pages, SWAP_CLUSTER_MAX, 128UL);
-			zone->_watermark[WMARK_MIN] = min_pages;
+			wmark_min = min_pages;
 		} else {
 			/*
 			 * If it's a lowmem zone, reserve a number of pages
 			 * proportionate to the zone's size.
 			 */
-			zone->_watermark[WMARK_MIN] = tmp;
+			wmark_min = tmp;
 		}

 		/*
@@ -7606,8 +7607,9 @@ static void __setup_per_zone_wmarks(void)
 			    mult_frac(zone_managed_pages(zone),
 				      watermark_scale_factor, 10000));

-		zone->_watermark[WMARK_LOW]  = min_wmark_pages(zone) + tmp;
-		zone->_watermark[WMARK_HIGH] = min_wmark_pages(zone) + tmp * 2;
+		zone->_watermark[WMARK_MIN]  = wmark_min;
+		zone->_watermark[WMARK_LOW]  = wmark_min + tmp;
+		zone->_watermark[WMARK_HIGH] = wmark_min + tmp * 2;
 		zone->watermark_boost = 0;

 		spin_unlock_irqrestore(&zone->lock, flags);
-- 
2.20.1