Re: mm: mkfs.ext4 invoked oom-killer on i386 - pagecache_get_page

From: Naresh Kamboju
Date: Wed Jun 17 2020 - 16:14:10 EST


On Wed, 17 Jun 2020 at 21:36, Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Wed 17-06-20 21:23:05, Naresh Kamboju wrote:
> > On Wed, 17 Jun 2020 at 19:41, Michal Hocko <mhocko@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > >
> > > [Our emails have crossed]
> > >
> > > On Wed 17-06-20 14:57:58, Chris Down wrote:
> > > > Naresh Kamboju writes:
> > > > > mkfs -t ext4 /dev/disk/by-id/ata-TOSHIBA_MG04ACA100N_Y8RQK14KF6XF
> > > > > mke2fs 1.43.8 (1-Jan-2018)
> > > > > Creating filesystem with 244190646 4k blocks and 61054976 inodes
> > > > > Filesystem UUID: 7c380766-0ed8-41ba-a0de-3c08e78f1891
> > > > > Superblock backups stored on blocks:
> > > > > 32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
> > > > > 4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616, 78675968,
> > > > > 102400000, 214990848
> > > > > Allocating group tables: 0/7453 done
> > > > > Writing inode tables: 0/7453 done
> > > > > Creating journal (262144 blocks): [ 51.544525] under min:0 emin:0
> > > > > [ 51.845304] under min:0 emin:0
> > > > > [ 51.848738] under min:0 emin:0
> > > > > [ 51.858147] under min:0 emin:0
> > > > > [ 51.861333] under min:0 emin:0
> > > > > [ 51.862034] under min:0 emin:0
> > > > > [ 51.862442] under min:0 emin:0
> > > > > [ 51.862763] under min:0 emin:0
> > > >
> > > > Thanks, this helps a lot. Somehow we're entering mem_cgroup_below_min even
> > > > when min/emin is 0 (which should indeed be the case if you haven't set them
> > > > in the hierarchy).
> > > >
> > > > My guess is that page_counter_read(&memcg->memory) is 0, which means
> > > > mem_cgroup_below_min will return 1.
> > >
> > > Yes this is the case because this is likely the root memcg which skips
> > > all charges.
> > >
> > > > However, I don't know for sure why that should then result in the OOM killer
> > > > coming along. My guess is that since this memcg has 0 pages to scan anyway,
> > > > we enter premature OOM under some conditions. I don't know why we wouldn't
> > > > have hit that with the old version of mem_cgroup_protected that returned
> > > > MEMCG_PROT_* members, though.
> > >
> > > Not really. There is likely no other memcg to reclaim from and assuming
> > > min limit protection will result in no reclaimable memory and thus the
> > > OOM killer.
> > >
> > > > Can you please try the patch with the `>=` checks in mem_cgroup_below_min
> > > > and mem_cgroup_below_low changed to `>`? If that fixes it, then that gives a
> > > > strong hint about what's going on here.
> > >
> > > This would work but I believe an explicit check for the root memcg would
> > > be easier to spot the reasoning.
> >
> > May I request you to send debugging or proposed fix patches here.
> > I am happy to do more testing.
>
> Sure, here is the diff to test.
>
> diff --git a/include/linux/memcontrol.h b/include/linux/memcontrol.h
> index c74a8f2323f1..6b5a31672fbe 100644
> --- a/include/linux/memcontrol.h
> +++ b/include/linux/memcontrol.h
> @@ -392,6 +392,13 @@ static inline bool mem_cgroup_below_low(struct mem_cgroup *memcg)
> if (mem_cgroup_disabled())
> return false;
>
> + /*
> + * Root memcg doesn't account charges and doesn't support
> + * protection
> + */
> + if (mem_cgroup_is_root(memcg))
> + return false;
> +
> return READ_ONCE(memcg->memory.elow) >=
> page_counter_read(&memcg->memory);
> }
> @@ -401,6 +408,13 @@ static inline bool mem_cgroup_below_min(struct mem_cgroup *memcg)
> if (mem_cgroup_disabled())
> return false;
>
> + /*
> + * Root memcg doesn't account charges and doesn't support
> + * protection
> + */
> + if (mem_cgroup_is_root(memcg))
> + return false;
> +
> return READ_ONCE(memcg->memory.emin) >=
> page_counter_read(&memcg->memory);
> }


After this patch applied the reported issue got fixed.

test log link,
https://lkft.validation.linaro.org/scheduler/job/1505417#L1429

- Naresh