Re: [PATCH] mm, memcg: assign shrinker_map before kvfree

[Kirill Tkhai]

On 20.09.2019 15:29, Cyrill Gorcunov wrote:
> Currently there is a small gap between fetching pointer, calling
> kvfree and assign its value to nil. In current callgraph it is
> not a problem (since memcg_free_shrinker_maps is running from
> memcg_alloc_shrinker_maps and mem_cgroup_css_free only) still
> this looks suspicious and we can easily eliminate the gap at all.
> 
> Cc: Johannes Weiner <hannes@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Vladimir Davydov <vdavydov.dev@xxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Kirill Tkhai <ktkhai@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Cyrill Gorcunov <gorcunov@xxxxxxxxx>
> ---
>  mm/memcontrol.c |    2 +-
>  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
> 
> Index: linux-tip.git/mm/memcontrol.c
> ===================================================================
> --- linux-tip.git.orig/mm/memcontrol.c
> +++ linux-tip.git/mm/memcontrol.c
> @@ -364,9 +364,9 @@ static void memcg_free_shrinker_maps(str
>  	for_each_node(nid) {
>  		pn = mem_cgroup_nodeinfo(memcg, nid);
>  		map = rcu_dereference_protected(pn->shrinker_map, true);
> +		rcu_assign_pointer(pn->shrinker_map, NULL);
>  		if (map)
>  			kvfree(map);
> -		rcu_assign_pointer(pn->shrinker_map, NULL);
>  	}
>  }

The current scheme is following. We allocate shrinker_map in css_online,
while normal freeing happens in css_free. The NULLifying of pointer is needed
in case of "abnormal freeing", when memcg_free_shrinker_maps() is called
from memcg_alloc_shrinker_maps(). The NULLifying guarantees, we won't free
pn->shrinker_map twice.

There are no races or problems with kvfree() and rcu_assign_pointer() order,
because of nobody can reference shrinker_map before memcg is online.

In case of this rcu_assign_pointer() confuses, we may just remove is from
the function, and call it only on css_free. Something like the below:

diff --git a/mm/memcontrol.c b/mm/memcontrol.c
index 1c4c08b45e44..454303c3aa0f 100644
--- a/mm/memcontrol.c
+++ b/mm/memcontrol.c
@@ -372,7 +372,6 @@ static void memcg_free_shrinker_maps(struct mem_cgroup *memcg)
 		map = rcu_dereference_protected(pn->shrinker_map, true);
 		if (map)
 			kvfree(map);
-		rcu_assign_pointer(pn->shrinker_map, NULL);
 	}
 }
 
@@ -389,7 +388,6 @@ static int memcg_alloc_shrinker_maps(struct mem_cgroup *memcg)
 	for_each_node(nid) {
 		map = kvzalloc(sizeof(*map) + size, GFP_KERNEL);
 		if (!map) {
-			memcg_free_shrinker_maps(memcg);
 			ret = -ENOMEM;
 			break;
 		}