[PATCH] mm/kmemleak: report RCU-tasks quiescent states during the scan

From: Breno Leitao

Date: Mon Jul 20 2026 - 10:06:23 EST


kmemleak_scan() can run for ages on large debug kernels. It was
causing some soft-lockups which I got fixed with commit
3175fcfec8b16baeb ("mm/kmemleak: avoid soft lockup when scanning task
stacks") with our beloved cond_resched().

I've got the fix above deployed in the Meta fleet, and now I am seeing:

INFO: rcu_tasks detected stalls on tasks:
task:kmemleak state:R ... nvcsw: 274/274 holdout: 1 idle_cpu: -1/3
scan_block
scan_gray_list
kmemleak_scan

and, worse, blocks the callers waiting on that grace period. Here a BPF
struct_ops map free, which waits via synchronize_rcu_mult(call_rcu,
call_rcu_tasks), is stuck long enough to also trip the hung task check:

INFO: task kworker/...:bpf_map_free_deferred blocked for 122 seconds
__wait_rcu_gp
bpf_struct_ops_map_free

Then I've learned that cond_resched() is not an RCU-tasks quiescent
state, so, we need to use stronger primitives.

Use cond_resched_tasks_rcu_qs() at the scan reschedule points so the scan
reports an RCU-tasks quiescent state as it proceeds.

Inspired by commit b96285e10aad ("tracing: Have osnoise_main() add a
quiescent state for task rcu").

Signed-off-by: Breno Leitao <leitao@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
mm/kmemleak.c | 14 +++++++-------
1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)

diff --git a/mm/kmemleak.c b/mm/kmemleak.c
index 85f18b17e79c4..f63dfacee7ca1 100644
--- a/mm/kmemleak.c
+++ b/mm/kmemleak.c
@@ -1586,7 +1586,7 @@ static int scan_large_block(void *start, void *end)
if (scan_block(start, next, NULL))
return 1;
start = next;
- cond_resched();
+ cond_resched_tasks_rcu_qs();
}

return 0;
@@ -1623,7 +1623,7 @@ static void scan_object(struct kmemleak_object *object)
scan_block(start, end, object);

raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore(&object->lock, flags);
- cond_resched();
+ cond_resched_tasks_rcu_qs();
raw_spin_lock_irqsave(&object->lock, flags);
if (!(object->flags & OBJECT_ALLOCATED))
break;
@@ -1645,7 +1645,7 @@ static void scan_object(struct kmemleak_object *object)
break;

raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore(&object->lock, flags);
- cond_resched();
+ cond_resched_tasks_rcu_qs();
raw_spin_lock_irqsave(&object->lock, flags);
} while (object->flags & OBJECT_ALLOCATED);
} else {
@@ -1673,7 +1673,7 @@ static void scan_gray_list(void)
*/
object = list_entry(gray_list.next, typeof(*object), gray_list);
while (&object->gray_list != &gray_list) {
- cond_resched();
+ cond_resched_tasks_rcu_qs();

/* may add new objects to the list */
if (!scan_should_stop())
@@ -1708,7 +1708,7 @@ static void kmemleak_cond_resched(struct kmemleak_object *object)
raw_spin_unlock_irq(&kmemleak_lock);

rcu_read_unlock();
- cond_resched();
+ cond_resched_tasks_rcu_qs();
rcu_read_lock();

raw_spin_lock_irq(&kmemleak_lock);
@@ -1753,7 +1753,7 @@ static void kmemleak_scan_task_stacks(void)
}
put_task_struct(p);
}
- cond_resched();
+ cond_resched_tasks_rcu_qs();
} while (pid && !stop);
}

@@ -1935,7 +1935,7 @@ static int __kmemleak_scan(bool full)
struct page *page = pfn_to_online_page(pfn);

if (!(pfn & 63))
- cond_resched();
+ cond_resched_tasks_rcu_qs();

if (!page)
continue;

---
base-commit: 0718283ab28bc3907e10b61a6b4be6fefa1cbb2f
change-id: 20260720-kmemleak_rcu_task-6d3ea111b947

Best regards,
--
Breno Leitao <leitao@xxxxxxxxxx>