Re: [patch] mm, oom: prevent soft lockup on memcg oom for UP systems

[Michal Hocko <mhocko@kernel.org>]

On Wed 11-03-20 12:45:40, David Rientjes wrote:
> On Wed, 11 Mar 2020, Michal Hocko wrote:
> 
> > > > > When a process is oom killed as a result of memcg limits and the victim
> > > > > is waiting to exit, nothing ends up actually yielding the processor back
> > > > > to the victim on UP systems with preemption disabled.  Instead, the
> > > > > charging process simply loops in memcg reclaim and eventually soft
> > > > > lockups.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Memory cgroup out of memory: Killed process 808 (repro) total-vm:41944kB, anon-rss:35344kB, file-rss:504kB, shmem-rss:0kB, UID:0 pgtables:108kB oom_score_adj:0
> > > > > watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#0 stuck for 23s! [repro:806]
> > > > > CPU: 0 PID: 806 Comm: repro Not tainted 5.6.0-rc5+ #136
> > > > > RIP: 0010:shrink_lruvec+0x4e9/0xa40
> > > > > ...
> > > > > Call Trace:
> > > > >  shrink_node+0x40d/0x7d0
> > > > >  do_try_to_free_pages+0x13f/0x470
> > > > >  try_to_free_mem_cgroup_pages+0x16d/0x230
> > > > >  try_charge+0x247/0xac0
> > > > >  mem_cgroup_try_charge+0x10a/0x220
> > > > >  mem_cgroup_try_charge_delay+0x1e/0x40
> > > > >  handle_mm_fault+0xdf2/0x15f0
> > > > >  do_user_addr_fault+0x21f/0x420
> > > > >  page_fault+0x2f/0x40
> > > > > 
> > > > > Make sure that something ends up actually yielding the processor back to
> > > > > the victim to allow for memory freeing.  Most appropriate place appears to
> > > > > be shrink_node_memcgs() where the iteration of all decendant memcgs could
> > > > > be particularly lengthy.
> > > > 
> > > > There is a cond_resched in shrink_lruvec and another one in
> > > > shrink_page_list. Why doesn't any of them hit? Is it because there are
> > > > no pages on the LRU list? Because rss data suggests there should be
> > > > enough pages to go that path. Or maybe it is shrink_slab path that takes
> > > > too long?
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > I think it can be a number of cases, most notably mem_cgroup_protected() 
> > > checks which is why the cond_resched() is added above it.  Rather than add 
> > > cond_resched() only for MEMCG_PROT_MIN and for certain MEMCG_PROT_LOW, the 
> > > cond_resched() is added above the switch clause because the iteration 
> > > itself may be potentially very lengthy.
> > 
> > Was any of the above the case for your soft lockup case? How have you
> > managed to trigger it? As I've said I am not against the patch but I
> > would really like to see an actual explanation what happened rather than
> > speculations of what might have happened. If for nothing else then for
> > the future reference.
> > 
> 
> Yes, this is how it was triggered in my own testing.
> 
> > If this is really about all the hierarchy being MEMCG_PROT_MIN protected
> > and that results in a very expensive and pointless reclaim walk that can
> > trigger soft lockup then it should be explicitly mentioned in the
> > changelog.
> 
> I think the changelog clearly states that we need to guarantee that a 
> reclaimer will yield the processor back to allow a victim to exit.  This 
> is where we make the guarantee.  If it helps for the specific reason it 
> triggered in my testing, we could add:
> 
> "For example, mem_cgroup_protected() can prohibit reclaim and thus any 
> yielding in page reclaim would not address the issue."

I would suggest something like the following:
"
The reclaim path (including the OOM) relies on explicit scheduling
points to hand over execution to tasks which could help with the reclaim
process. Currently it is mostly shrink_page_list which yields CPU for
each reclaimed page. This might be insuficient though in some
configurations. E.g. when a memcg OOM path is triggered in a hierarchy
which doesn't have any reclaimable memory because of memory reclaim
protection (MEMCG_PROT_MIN) then there is possible to trigger a soft
lockup during an out of memory situation on non preemptible kernels
<PUT YOUR SOFT LOCKUP SPLAT HERE>

Fix this by adding a cond_resched up in the reclaim path and make sure
there is a yield point regardless of reclaimability of the target
hierarchy.
"

-- 
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs