[PATCHv2] mm: Fix calculation of dirtyable memory

[Sonny Rao]

The system uses global_dirtyable_memory() to calculate
number of dirtyable pages/pages that can be allocated
to the page cache.  A bug causes an underflow thus making
the page count look like a big unsigned number.  This in turn
confuses the dirty writeback throttling to aggressively write
back pages as they become dirty (usually 1 page at a time).

Fix is to ensure there is no underflow while doing the math.

Signed-off-by: Sonny Rao <sonnyrao@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Puneet Kumar <puneetster@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
 v2: added apkm's suggestion to make the highmem calculation better
 mm/page-writeback.c |   17 +++++++++++++++--
 1 files changed, 15 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/mm/page-writeback.c b/mm/page-writeback.c
index 830893b..ce62442 100644
--- a/mm/page-writeback.c
+++ b/mm/page-writeback.c
@@ -201,6 +201,18 @@ static unsigned long highmem_dirtyable_memory(unsigned long total)
 		     zone_reclaimable_pages(z) - z->dirty_balance_reserve;
 	}
 	/*
+	 * Unreclaimable memory (kernel memory or anonymous memory
+	 * without swap) can bring down the dirtyable pages below
+	 * the zone's dirty balance reserve and the above calculation
+	 * will underflow.  However we still want to add in nodes
+	 * which are below threshold (negative values) to get a more
+	 * accurate calculation but make sure that the total never
+	 * underflows.
+	 */
+	if ((long)x < 0)
+		x = 0;
+
+	/*
 	 * Make sure that the number of highmem pages is never larger
 	 * than the number of the total dirtyable memory. This can only
 	 * occur in very strange VM situations but we want to make sure
@@ -222,8 +234,9 @@ static unsigned long global_dirtyable_memory(void)
 {
 	unsigned long x;
 
-	x = global_page_state(NR_FREE_PAGES) + global_reclaimable_pages() -
-	    dirty_balance_reserve;
+	x = global_page_state(NR_FREE_PAGES) + global_reclaimable_pages();
+	if (x >= dirty_balance_reserve)
+		x -= dirty_balance_reserve;
 
 	if (!vm_highmem_is_dirtyable)
 		x -= highmem_dirtyable_memory(x);
-- 
1.7.7.3

--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/