linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v1] mm/memory_hotplug: Don't take the cpu_hotplug

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Date:   Fri, 4 Oct 2019 09:42:52 +0200
From:   David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>
To:     Qian Cai <cai@....pw>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Cc:     linux-mm@...ck.org, Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Oscar Salvador <osalvador@...e.de>,
        Michal Hocko <mhocko@...e.com>,
        Pavel Tatashin <pasha.tatashin@...een.com>,
        Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@...el.com>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v1] mm/memory_hotplug: Don't take the cpu_hotplug_lock

On 02.10.19 23:37, Qian Cai wrote:
> On Tue, 2019-09-24 at 16:36 +0200, David Hildenbrand wrote:
>> Since commit 3f906ba23689 ("mm/memory-hotplug: switch locking to a percpu
>> rwsem") we do a cpus_read_lock() in mem_hotplug_begin(). This was
>> introduced to fix a potential deadlock between get_online_mems() and
>> get_online_cpus() - the memory and cpu hotplug lock. The root issue was
>> that build_all_zonelists() -> stop_machine() required the cpu hotplug lock:
>>     The reason is that memory hotplug takes the memory hotplug lock and
>>     then calls stop_machine() which calls get_online_cpus().  That's the
>>     reverse lock order to get_online_cpus(); get_online_mems(); in
>>     mm/slub_common.c
>>
>> So memory hotplug never really required any cpu lock itself, only
>> stop_machine() and lru_add_drain_all() required it. Back then,
>> stop_machine_cpuslocked() and lru_add_drain_all_cpuslocked() were used
>> as the cpu hotplug lock was now obtained in the caller.
>>
>> Since commit 11cd8638c37f ("mm, page_alloc: remove stop_machine from build
>> all_zonelists"), the stop_machine_cpuslocked() call is gone.
>> build_all_zonelists() does no longer require the cpu lock and does no
>> longer make use of stop_machine().
>>
>> Since commit 9852a7212324 ("mm: drop hotplug lock from
>> lru_add_drain_all()"), lru_add_drain_all() "Doesn't need any cpu hotplug
>> locking because we do rely on per-cpu kworkers being shut down before our
>> page_alloc_cpu_dead callback is executed on the offlined cpu.". The
>> lru_add_drain_all_cpuslocked() variant was removed.
>>
>> So there is nothing left that requires the cpu hotplug lock. The memory
>> hotplug lock and the device hotplug lock are sufficient.
> 
> Actually, powerpc does,
> 
> arch_add_memory()
>   resize_hpt_for_hotplug()
>     pseries_lpar_resize_hpt()
>       stop_machine_cpuslocked()
> 

Thanks for that observation. This will need some further thought.

Another proof that locking is messed up :)

Maybe we should start decoupling locking of the memory
onlining/offlining path (e.g., get_online_mems()) from the memory
adding/removing path (e.g., later something like get_present_mems()).
Then we can push down the cpu hotplug lock to the PPC path and use
stop_machine() directly.

Time to document properly which lock protects what :)

-- 

Thanks,

David / dhildenb