Re: Deadlock possibly caused by too_many_isolated.

[Minchan Kim]

On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 11:03 AM, KOSAKI Motohiro
<kosaki.motohiro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 10:21 AM, KOSAKI Motohiro
>> <kosaki.motohiro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >> On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 9:57 AM, KOSAKI Motohiro
>> >> <kosaki.motohiro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >> >> > I think there are two bugs here.
>> >> >> > The raid1 bug that Torsten mentions is certainly real (and has been around
>> >> >> > for an embarrassingly long time).
>> >> >> > The bug that I identified in too_many_isolated is also a real bug and can be
>> >> >> > triggered without md/raid1 in the mix.
>> >> >> > So this is not a 'full fix' for every bug in the kernel :-), but it could
>> >> >> > well be a full fix for this particular bug.
>> >> >> >
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Can we just delete the too_many_isolated() logic?  (Crappy comment
>> >> >> describes what the code does but not why it does it).
>> >> >
>> >> > if my remember is correct, we got bug report that LTP may makes misterious
>> >> > OOM killer invocation about 1-2 years ago. because, if too many parocess are in
>> >> > reclaim path, all of reclaimable pages can be isolated and last reclaimer found
>> >> > the system don't have any reclaimable pages and lead to invoke OOM killer.
>> >> > We have strong motivation to avoid false positive oom. then, some discusstion
>> >> > made this patch.
>> >> >
>> >> > if my remember is incorrect, I hope Wu or Rik fix me.
>> >>
>> >> AFAIR, it's right.
>> >>
>> >> How about this?
>> >>
>> >> It's rather aggressive throttling than old(ie, it considers not lru
>> >> type granularity but zone )
>> >> But I think it can prevent unnecessary OOM problem and solve deadlock problem.
>> >
>> > Can you please elaborate your intention? Do you think Wu's approach is wrong?
>>
>> No. I think Wu's patch may work well. But I agree Andrew.
>> Couldn't we remove the too_many_isolated logic? If it is, we can solve
>> the problem simply.
>> But If we remove the logic, we will meet long time ago problem, again.
>> So my patch's intention is to prevent OOM and deadlock problem with
>> simple patch without adding new heuristic in too_many_isolated.
>
> But your patch is much false positive/negative chance because isolated pages timing
> and too_many_isolated_zone() call site are in far distance place.

Yes.
How about the returning *did_some_progress can imply too_many_isolated
fail by using MSB or new variable?
Then, page_allocator can check it whether it causes read reclaim fail
or parallel reclaim.
The point is let's throttle without holding FS/IO lock.

> So, if anyone don't say Wu's one is wrong, I like his one.
>

I am not against it and just want to solve the problem without adding new logic.



-- 
Kind regards,
Minchan Kim
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