[RFC PATCH v4 09/18] mm/swap: avoid direct reclaim when populating swap cluster metadata

[Lian Wang]

Swap cluster population is entered from swap allocation and may itself
need memory for slot metadata. Its fallback drops the device and cluster
locks before allocating with GFP_KERNEL, which can reenter swap
allocation through direct reclaim.

Make this allocation boundary explicitly non-reclaiming so callers can
retain outer synchronization without a recursive swap allocation.
Clear __GFP_DIRECT_RECLAIM from the fallback request while retaining
__GFP_HIGH and __GFP_NOMEMALLOC. The retry can still wake kswapd, but
fails without direct reclaim when memory is unavailable.

This can make metadata allocation fail earlier under memory pressure.
Keep the existing isolated-cluster rollback and restrict this request
without adding a task-wide PF_MEMALLOC scope.

Signed-off-by: Lian Wang <lianux.mm@xxxxxxxxx>
---
 mm/swapfile.c | 23 +++++++++++++----------
 1 file changed, 13 insertions(+), 10 deletions(-)

diff --git a/mm/swapfile.c b/mm/swapfile.c
index c46b43414bf4..fae862fc873c 100644
--- a/mm/swapfile.c
+++ b/mm/swapfile.c
@@ -586,13 +586,14 @@ static void swap_cluster_assert_empty(struct swap_cluster_info *ci,
 }
 
 /*
- * Allocate swap table for one cluster. Attempt an atomic allocation first,
- * then fallback to sleeping allocation.
+ * Allocate swap table for one cluster. Attempt allocation under the locks
+ * first, then retry with the locks dropped without entering direct reclaim.
  */
 static struct swap_cluster_info *
 swap_cluster_populate(struct swap_info_struct *si,
 			 struct swap_cluster_info *ci)
 {
+	gfp_t gfp;
 	int ret;
 
 	/*
@@ -610,9 +611,11 @@ swap_cluster_populate(struct swap_info_struct *si,
 		return ci;
 
 	/*
-	 * Try a sleep allocation. Each isolated free cluster may cause
-	 * a sleep allocation, but there is a limited number of them, so
-	 * the potential recursive allocation is limited.
+	 * Drop the device and cluster locks before retrying. Metadata allocation
+	 * must not recurse into swap allocation through direct reclaim: callers
+	 * can retain outer synchronization across cluster population. Restrict
+	 * this request instead of granting the task PF_MEMALLOC, which could
+	 * give allocator hooks and failure cleanup reserve access.
 	 */
 	spin_unlock(&ci->lock);
 	if (si->flags & SWP_SOLIDSTATE)
@@ -620,8 +623,9 @@ swap_cluster_populate(struct swap_info_struct *si,
 	else
 		spin_unlock(&si->global_cluster->lock);
 
-	ret = swap_cluster_alloc_table(si, ci, __GFP_HIGH | __GFP_NOMEMALLOC |
-					     GFP_KERNEL, false);
+	gfp = (GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_HIGH | __GFP_NOMEMALLOC) &
+		~__GFP_DIRECT_RECLAIM;
+	ret = swap_cluster_alloc_table(si, ci, gfp, false);
 
 	/*
 	 * Back to atomic context. We might have migrated to a new CPU with a
@@ -3160,9 +3164,8 @@ static int swap_device_disable(struct address_space *mapping,
 		return err;
 
 	/*
-	 * The swap allocator doesn't take swapon_rwsem. Looping through every
-	 * cluster lock after clearing SWP_WRITEOK ensures that allocators see
-	 * the updated flag and that no allocation remains in flight.
+	 * Drain cluster-lock users after clearing SWP_WRITEOK, so swapoff
+	 * does not race with operations that started before the transition.
 	 */
 	for (offset = 0; offset < end; offset += SWAPFILE_CLUSTER) {
 		ci = swap_cluster_lock(si, offset);