Re: [PATCH v2] mm/kmemleak: avoid soft lockup when scanning task stacks

[Oleg Nesterov]

To avoid the confusion, I see nothing wrong in this patch, but see
the question at the end.

On 06/12, Breno Leitao wrote:
>
> +/*
> + * Briefly drop the RCU read lock to reschedule during the task stack scan.
> + * Both cursors are pinned across the gap; return false if either one was
> + * unhashed meanwhile, so the caller stops this round instead of walking a
> + * stale list.
> + */
> +static bool kmemleak_stack_scan_break(struct task_struct *g,
> +				      struct task_struct *p)
> +{
> +	bool can_cont;
> +
> +	get_task_struct(g);
> +	get_task_struct(p);
> +
> +	rcu_read_unlock();
> +	cond_resched();
> +	rcu_read_lock();
> +
> +	can_cont = pid_alive(g) && pid_alive(p);
> +
> +	put_task_struct(p);
> +	put_task_struct(g);
> +
> +	return can_cont;
> +}

Perhaps we can rename and export rcu_lock_break() to avoid the duplication...

And, this is slightly off-topic, please ignore, but this reminds me about
[PATCH 1/2] introduce for_each_process_thread_break() and for_each_process_thread_continue()
https://lore.kernel.org/all/20180912163335.GA18748@xxxxxxxxxx/

> @@ -1890,11 +1917,21 @@ static void kmemleak_scan(void)
>  		rcu_read_lock();
>  		for_each_process_thread(g, p) {
>  			void *stack = try_get_task_stack(p);
> +
>  			if (stack) {
>  				scan_block(stack, stack + THREAD_SIZE, NULL);
>  				put_task_stack(p);
>  			}
> +			/*
> +			 * This is an expensive loop, we must to call the
> +			 * scheduler to avoid lockups
> +			 */
> +			if (need_resched() && !kmemleak_stack_scan_break(g, p)) {
> +				aborted = true;
> +				goto unlock;

Can this need_resched() check actually help if CONFIG_PREEMPTION &&
CONFIG_PREEMPT_RCU ?

In this case (lets ignore PREEMPT_DYNAMIC to simplify) rcu_read_lock()
doesn't disable preemption and cond_resched() is nop, need_resched() is
(almost) never true. Right?

I guess even in this case it makes sense to not abuse rcu_read_lock()
"too much", but perhaps we need something more clever than need_resched() ?

Note that check_hung_uninterruptible_tasks() uses time_after()...

Oleg.