Re: [PATCH v2] cgroup, blkcg: prevent dirty inodes to pin dying memory cgroups

[Jan Kara]

On Tue 15-10-19 21:40:45, Roman Gushchin wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 15, 2019 at 11:09:33AM +0200, Jan Kara wrote:
> > On Thu 10-10-19 16:40:36, Roman Gushchin wrote:
> > 
> > > @@ -426,7 +431,7 @@ static void inode_switch_wbs_work_fn(struct work_struct *work)
> > >  	if (!list_empty(&inode->i_io_list)) {
> > >  		struct inode *pos;
> > >  
> > > -		inode_io_list_del_locked(inode, old_wb);
> > > +		inode_io_list_del_locked(inode, old_wb, false);
> > >  		inode->i_wb = new_wb;
> > >  		list_for_each_entry(pos, &new_wb->b_dirty, i_io_list)
> > >  			if (time_after_eq(inode->dirtied_when,
> > 
> > This bit looks wrong. Not the change you made as such but the fact that you
> > can now move inode from b_attached list of old wb to the dirty list of new
> > wb.
> 
> Hm, can you, please, elaborate a bit more why it's wrong?
> The reference to the old_wb will be dropped by the switching code.

My point is that the code in full looks like:

        if (!list_empty(&inode->i_io_list)) {
                struct inode *pos;

                inode_io_list_del_locked(inode, old_wb);
                inode->i_wb = new_wb;
                list_for_each_entry(pos, &new_wb->b_dirty, i_io_list)
                        if (time_after_eq(inode->dirtied_when,
                                          pos->dirtied_when))
                                break;
                inode_io_list_move_locked(inode, new_wb, pos->i_io_list.prev);
        } else {

So inode is always moved from some io list in old_wb to b_dirty list of
new_wb. This is fine when it could be only on b_dirty, b_io, b_more_io lists
of old_wb. But once you add b_attached list to the game, it is not correct
anymore. You should not add clean inode to b_dirty list of new_wb.

> > > +
> > > +	list_for_each_entry_safe(inode, tmp, &wb->b_attached, i_io_list) {
> > > +		if (!spin_trylock(&inode->i_lock))
> > > +			continue;
> > > +		xa_lock_irq(&inode->i_mapping->i_pages);
> > > +		if (!(inode->i_state &
> > > +		      (I_FREEING | I_CLEAR | I_SYNC | I_DIRTY | I_WB_SWITCH))) {
> > > +			WARN_ON_ONCE(inode->i_wb != wb);
> > > +			inode->i_wb = NULL;
> > > +			wb_put(wb);
> > 
> > Hum, currently the code assumes that once i_wb is set, it never becomes
> > NULL again. In particular the inode e.g. in
> > fs/fs-writeback.c:inode_congested() or generally unlocked_inode_to_wb_begin()
> > users could get broken by this. The i_wb switching code is so complex
> > exactly because of these interactions.
> > 
> > Maybe you thought through the interactions and things are actually fine but
> > if nothing else you'd need a big fat comment here explaining why this is
> > fine and update inode_congested() comments etc.
> 
> Yeah, I thought that once inode is clean and not switching it's safe to clear
> the i_wb pointer, but seems that it's not completely true.
>
> One idea I have is to always release wbs using rcu delayed work, so that
> it will be save to dereference i_wb pointer under rcu, if only it's not NULL
> (the check has to be added). I'll try to implement this scheme, but if you
> know in advance that it's not gonna work, please, let me know.

I think I'd just drop inode_to_wb_is_valid() because once i_wb can change
to NULL, that function is just pointless in that single callsite. Also we
have to count with the fact that unlocked_inode_to_wb_begin() can return
NULL and gracefully do as much as possible in that case for all the
callers. And I agree that those occurences in mm/page-writeback.c should be
blocked by inode being clean and you holding all those locks so you can
warn if that happens I guess.

								Honza
-- 
Jan Kara <jack@xxxxxxxx>
SUSE Labs, CR