linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH V3 2/2] cgroup/rstat: Avoid thundering herd problem by kswapd across NUMA nodes

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Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2024 21:18:35 +0200
From: Jesper Dangaard Brouer <hawk@...nel.org>
To: Shakeel Butt <shakeel.butt@...ux.dev>, Yosry Ahmed <yosryahmed@...gle.com>
Cc: tj@...nel.org, cgroups@...r.kernel.org, hannes@...xchg.org,
 lizefan.x@...edance.com, longman@...hat.com, kernel-team@...udflare.com,
 linux-mm@...ck.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH V3 2/2] cgroup/rstat: Avoid thundering herd problem by
 kswapd across NUMA nodes



On 27/06/2024 20.45, Shakeel Butt wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 27, 2024 at 04:32:03AM GMT, Yosry Ahmed wrote:
>> On Thu, Jun 27, 2024 at 3:33 AM Yosry Ahmed <yosryahmed@...gle.com> wrote:
> [...]
>>>
>>> The reason why I suggested that the completion live in struct cgroup
>>> is because there is a chance here that the flush completes and another
>>> irrelevant flush starts between reading cgrp_rstat_ongoing_flusher and
>>> calling wait_for_completion_interruptible_timeout().
> 

I didn't add this per cgroup because I fear the race of adding a 
wait_for_completion on a cgroup that gets stuck there, but looking at 
the code the completion API should be able to avoid this.


> Yes this can happen if flusher for irrelevant cgroup calls
> reinit_completion() while the initial flusher was just about to call
> wait_for_completion_interruptible_timeout().
> 

Restoring two main functions to assist reviewer seeing the race:

On 26/06/2024 23.18, Jesper Dangaard Brouer wrote:
 > +#define MAX_WAIT	msecs_to_jiffies(100)
 > +/* Trylock helper that also checks for on ongoing flusher */
 > +static bool cgroup_rstat_trylock_flusher(struct cgroup *cgrp)
 > +{
 > +retry:
 > +	bool locked = __cgroup_rstat_trylock(cgrp, -1);
 > +	if (!locked) {
 > +		struct cgroup *cgrp_ongoing;
 > +
 > +		/* Lock is contended, lets check if ongoing flusher is
 > +		 * taking care of this, if we are a descendant.
 > +		 */
 > +		cgrp_ongoing = READ_ONCE(cgrp_rstat_ongoing_flusher);
 > +		if (!cgrp_ongoing)
 > +			goto retry;
 > +

Long wait/race here, can cause us to see an out-dated cgrp_ongoing.
And then another CPU manage to reach reinit_completion() below, before
execution continues here.

 > +		if (cgroup_is_descendant(cgrp, cgrp_ongoing)) {
 > +			wait_for_completion_interruptible_timeout(
 > +				&cgrp_rstat_flusher_done, MAX_WAIT);
 > +
 > +			return false;
 > +		}
 > +		__cgroup_rstat_lock(cgrp, -1, false);
 > +	}
 > +	/* Obtained lock, record this cgrp as the ongoing flusher */
 > +	reinit_completion(&cgrp_rstat_flusher_done);
 > +	WRITE_ONCE(cgrp_rstat_ongoing_flusher, cgrp);
 > +
 > +	return true; /* locked */
 > +}
 > +
 > +static void cgroup_rstat_unlock_flusher(struct cgroup *cgrp)
 > +{
 > +	WRITE_ONCE(cgrp_rstat_ongoing_flusher, NULL);
 > +	complete_all(&cgrp_rstat_flusher_done);
 > +	__cgroup_rstat_unlock(cgrp, -1);
 > +}


>>>
>>> This will cause the caller to wait for an irrelevant flush, which may
>>> be fine because today the caller would wait for the lock anyway. Just
>>> mentioning this in case you think this may happen enough to be a
>>> problem.

Yes, it would wait for an irrelevant flush.

>>
>> Actually, I think this can happen beyond the window I described above.
>> I think it's possible that a thread waits for the flush, then gets
>> woken up when complete_all() is called, but another flusher calls
>> reinit_completion() immediately. The woken up thread will observe
>> completion->done == 0 and go to sleep again.
> 
> I don't think it will go to sleep again as there is no retry.
> 
>>
>> I think most of these cases can be avoided if we make the completion
>> per cgroup. It is still possible to wait for more flushes than
>> necessary, but only if they are for the same cgroup.
> 
> Yeah, per-cgroup completion would avoid the problem of waiting for
> irrelevant flush.

Great, I will code up a version with per-cgroup completion.

--Jesper