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

[Breno Leitao]

Hello Paul,

On Mon, Jul 20, 2026 at 09:21:17PM -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 20, 2026 at 03:39:17PM -0700, Andrew Morton wrote:
> > On Mon, 20 Jul 2026 06:23:45 -0700 Breno Leitao <leitao@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > 
> > > 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").
> > 
> > I'll add
> > 
> > Fixes: c4b28963fd79 ("mm/kmemleak: rely on rcu for task stack scanning")
> > Cc: <stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> 
> Thanks to all three of you!
> 
> This adds fewer than ten calls to cond_resched_tasks_rcu_qs(), but still
> more than doubles the number of such calls outside of the RCU subsystem.
> 
> Which is most likely just fine, and in any case absolutely should not
> get in the way of Breno's patch, which after all solves a real problem
> in the here and now.
> 
> Nevertheless, on the off-chance that over the next few months or years
> we start playing cond_resched_tasks_rcu_qs() whack-a-mole, I figured it
> would be good to get a head start on writing up alternatives.  An initial
> draft may be found here:
> 
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1s3fn29SCTYVw9jak4iraNIVQR59Wk5C6_I-_eu-MfQA/edit?usp=sharing
> 
> TL;DR:  Should we get into a rousing game of whack-a-mole, alternatives
> include continuing as we are, making the existing calls to cond_resched()
> in turn call cond_resched_tasks_rcu_qs(), decoupling mutex-induced
> hung-task warnings from synchronize_rcu_tasks(), and various
> not-so-practical alternatives to RCU Tasks for trampoline synchronization.
> 
> Thoughts?  Especially thoughts on other schemes?

While debugging this issue, I was surprised to discover that cond_resched()
doesn't provide RCU-tasks quiescent states. That led me to
cond_resched_tasks_rcu_qs(), which is the stronger primitive needed for
long-running kernel threads like kmemleak_scan(). Is this the common
case for cond_resched()? I got the impression that kmemleak is the
extreme side, but, I have no data on this.

Worth noting that commit 7dadeaa6e851e7 ("sched: Further restrict the
preemption modes") continues to narrow PREEMPT_NONE, so the future of
cond_resched() itself may be uncertain, no?