Re: [RFC PATCH 1/3] mm/compaction: skip isolate mlocked folios when compact_unevictable_allowed=0

From: Wandun

Date: Mon Jun 29 2026 - 05:12:03 EST




On 6/26/26 21:42, Alexander Krabler wrote:
> On 6/26/26 11:38, Wandun wrote:
>> On 6/26/26 16:45, Alexander Krabler wrote:
>>> However, we were not able to reproduce the actual race
>>> (mlockall() process waiting on a migration PTE),
>>> not in the past, not now. Might be hard to trigger that race.
>>
>> Not hard to trigger that case, I added a debug message, such as below,
>> lots of messages occur in a few second.
>>
>> diff --cc mm/memory.c
>> index ff338c2abe92,ff338c2abe92..6552b3b14f78
>> --- a/mm/memory.c
>> +++ b/mm/memory.c
>> @@@ -4768,6 -4768,6 +4768,8 @@@ vm_fault_t do_swap_page(struct vm_faul
>> if (softleaf_is_migration(entry)) {
>> migration_entry_wait(vma->vm_mm, vmf->pmd,
>> vmf->address);
>> + if (!strcmp(current->comm, "repro"))
>> + pr_err("============== hit ================\n");
>> } else if (softleaf_is_device_exclusive(entry)) {
>> vmf->page = softleaf_to_page(entry);
>> ret = remove_device_exclusive_entry(vmf);
>
> I have a kprobe on migration_entry_wait set and logged into a ftrace buffer
> (including kernel stacktrace).
> Yes, this function is hit, but only inside the mmap-syscall, which is okay,
> memory allocation is not realtime-safe.
>
> repro-2090 [002] d.... 811.129549: frt_migration_entry_wait: (migration_entry_wait+0x0/0x100)
> repro-2090 [002] d.... 811.129553: <stack trace>
> => migration_entry_wait
> => __handle_mm_fault
> => handle_mm_fault
> => __get_user_pages
> => populate_vma_page_range
> => __mm_populate
> => vm_mmap_pgoff
> => ksys_mmap_pgoff
> => __arm64_sys_mmap
> => el0_svc_common.constprop.0
> => do_el0_svc
> => el0_svc
> => el0t_64_sync_handler
> => el0t_64_sync
>
> The original race was an instruction abort interrupt out of nothing due
> to the migration PTE set by kcompactd.
> And these kind of races I see quite often on non mlockall()-processes,
> but can't reproduce on memory locked processes.
>
> Example:
> podman-832 [000] d.... 812.447820: frt_migration_entry_wait: (migration_entry_wait+0x0/0x100)
> podman-832 [000] d.... 812.447823: <stack trace>
> => migration_entry_wait
> => __handle_mm_fault
> => handle_mm_fault
> => do_page_fault
> => do_translation_fault
> => do_mem_abort
> => el0_da
> => el0t_64_sync_handler
> => el0t_64_sync

Hi, Alexander

>From the perspective of the root cause, there is no fundamental difference
between these two call stacks. I modified the reproduction program, and it
can still reproduce the situation of the second call stack
(although it doesn't occur as frequently). The complete reproduction program
is as follows:


#define _GNU_SOURCE
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <pthread.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/mman.h>
#include <sys/sysinfo.h>
#include <unistd.h>

#define PAGE_SIZE 4096
#define NR_PAGES 10000

static void *worker_fn(void *arg)
{
int fd = (long)arg;
size_t len = NR_PAGES * PAGE_SIZE;

while (1) {
if (ftruncate(fd, 0) < 0) {}
if (ftruncate(fd, len) < 0) {}

char *p = mmap(NULL, len, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE,
MAP_SHARED, fd, 0);
if (p == MAP_FAILED)
continue;

mlockall(MCL_ONFAULT | MCL_FUTURE);

for (int i = 0; i < NR_PAGES; i++) {
for (int j = 0; j < PAGE_SIZE; j++) {
p[i * PAGE_SIZE + j] = 1;
}
}

usleep(200);
munmap(p, len);
}
return NULL;
}

static void *compact_fn(void *arg)
{
(void)arg;
int fd = open("/proc/sys/vm/compact_memory", O_WRONLY);
if (fd < 0)
return NULL;

while (1) {
if (write(fd, "1", 1) < 0) {}
usleep(5000);
}
}

int main(void)
{
int nproc = sysconf(_SC_NPROCESSORS_ONLN);
if (nproc < 1)
nproc = 1;

int *fds = calloc((size_t)nproc, sizeof(int));
if (!fds)
return 1;

size_t len = NR_PAGES * PAGE_SIZE;
for (int i = 0; i < nproc; i++) {
char path[64];
snprintf(path, sizeof(path), "./repro_%d.dat", i);
unlink(path);
fds[i] = open(path, O_RDWR | O_CREAT, 0600);
if (fds[i] < 0)
return 1;
if (ftruncate(fds[i], len) < 0)
return 1;
}

printf("repro: %d workers, %d pages, Ctrl-C to stop\n",
nproc, NR_PAGES);

pthread_t compact;
pthread_create(&compact, NULL, compact_fn, NULL);

pthread_t *threads = calloc((size_t)nproc, sizeof(pthread_t));
for (int i = 0; i < nproc; i++)
pthread_create(&threads[i], NULL, worker_fn, (void *)(long)fds[i]);

pthread_join(compact, NULL);
return 0;
}




>
> Thanks,
> Alexander
>
> --
>
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