mm: list_lru: fix almost infinite loop causing effective livelock

I've seen a fair number of issues with kswapd and other processes
appearing to get stuck in v3.12-rc.  Using sysrq-p many times seems to
indicate that it gets stuck somewhere in list_lru_walk_node(), called
from prune_icache_sb() and super_cache_scan().

I never seem to be able to trigger a calltrace for functions above that
point.

So I decided to add the following to super_cache_scan():

    @@ -81,10 +81,14 @@ static unsigned long super_cache_scan(struct shrinker *shrink,
            inodes = list_lru_count_node(&sb->s_inode_lru, sc->nid);
            dentries = list_lru_count_node(&sb->s_dentry_lru, sc->nid);
            total_objects = dentries + inodes + fs_objects + 1;
    +printk("%s:%u: %s: dentries %lu inodes %lu total %lu\n", current->comm, current->pid, __func__, dentries, inodes, total_objects);

            /* proportion the scan between the caches */
            dentries = mult_frac(sc->nr_to_scan, dentries, total_objects);
            inodes = mult_frac(sc->nr_to_scan, inodes, total_objects);
    +printk("%s:%u: %s: dentries %lu inodes %lu\n", current->comm, current->pid, __func__, dentries, inodes);
    +BUG_ON(dentries == 0);
    +BUG_ON(inodes == 0);

            /*
             * prune the dcache first as the icache is pinned by it, then
    @@ -99,7 +103,7 @@ static unsigned long super_cache_scan(struct shrinker *shrink,
                    freed += sb->s_op->free_cached_objects(sb, fs_objects,
                                                           sc->nid);
            }
    -
    +printk("%s:%u: %s: dentries %lu inodes %lu freed %lu\n", current->comm, current->pid, __func__, dentries, inodes, freed);
            drop_super(sb);
            return freed;
     }

and shortly thereafter, having applied some pressure, I got this:

    update-apt-xapi:1616: super_cache_scan: dentries 25632 inodes 2 total 25635
    update-apt-xapi:1616: super_cache_scan: dentries 1023 inodes 0
    ------------[ cut here ]------------
    Kernel BUG at c0101994 [verbose debug info unavailable]
    Internal error: Oops - BUG: 0 [#3] SMP ARM
    Modules linked in: fuse rfcomm bnep bluetooth hid_cypress
    CPU: 0 PID: 1616 Comm: update-apt-xapi Tainted: G      D      3.12.0-rc7+ #154
    task: daea1200 ti: c3bf8000 task.ti: c3bf8000
    PC is at super_cache_scan+0x1c0/0x278
    LR is at trace_hardirqs_on+0x14/0x18
    Process update-apt-xapi (pid: 1616, stack limit = 0xc3bf8240)
    ...
    Backtrace:
      (super_cache_scan) from [<c00cd69c>] (shrink_slab+0x254/0x4c8)
      (shrink_slab) from [<c00d09a0>] (try_to_free_pages+0x3a0/0x5e0)
      (try_to_free_pages) from [<c00c59cc>] (__alloc_pages_nodemask+0x5)
      (__alloc_pages_nodemask) from [<c00e07c0>] (__pte_alloc+0x2c/0x13)
      (__pte_alloc) from [<c00e3a70>] (handle_mm_fault+0x84c/0x914)
      (handle_mm_fault) from [<c001a4cc>] (do_page_fault+0x1f0/0x3bc)
      (do_page_fault) from [<c001a7b0>] (do_translation_fault+0xac/0xb8)
      (do_translation_fault) from [<c000840c>] (do_DataAbort+0x38/0xa0)
      (do_DataAbort) from [<c00133f8>] (__dabt_usr+0x38/0x40)

Notice that we had a very low number of inodes, which were reduced to
zero my mult_frac().

Now, prune_icache_sb() calls list_lru_walk_node() passing that number of
inodes (0) into that as the number of objects to scan:

    long prune_icache_sb(struct super_block *sb, unsigned long nr_to_scan,
                         int nid)
    {
            LIST_HEAD(freeable);
            long freed;

            freed = list_lru_walk_node(&sb->s_inode_lru, nid, inode_lru_isolate,
                                           &freeable, &nr_to_scan);

which does:

    unsigned long
    list_lru_walk_node(struct list_lru *lru, int nid, list_lru_walk_cb isolate,
                       void *cb_arg, unsigned long *nr_to_walk)
    {

            struct list_lru_node    *nlru = &lru->node[nid];
            struct list_head *item, *n;
            unsigned long isolated = 0;

            spin_lock(&nlru->lock);
    restart:
            list_for_each_safe(item, n, &nlru->list) {
                    enum lru_status ret;

                    /*
                     * decrement nr_to_walk first so that we don't livelock if we
                     * get stuck on large numbesr of LRU_RETRY items
                     */
                    if (--(*nr_to_walk) == 0)
                            break;

So, if *nr_to_walk was zero when this function was entered, that means
we're wanting to operate on (~0UL)+1 objects - which might as well be
infinite.

Clearly this is not correct behaviour.  If we think about the behaviour
of this function when *nr_to_walk is 1, then clearly it's wrong - we
decrement first and then test for zero - which results in us doing
nothing at all.  A post-decrement would give the desired behaviour -
we'd try to walk one object and one object only if *nr_to_walk were one.

It also gives the correct behaviour for zero - we exit at this point.

Fixes: 5cedf721a7cd ("list_lru: fix broken LRU_RETRY behaviour")
Signed-off-by: Russell King <rmk+kernel@arm.linux.org.uk>
Cc: Dave Chinner <dchinner@redhat.com>
Cc: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
[ Modified to make sure we never underflow the count: this function gets
  called in a loop, so the 0 -> ~0ul transition is dangerous  - Linus ]
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>

1 files changed, 2 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/mm/list_lru.c b/mm/list_lru.c
index 7246791..72f9dec 100644
--- a/mm/list_lru.c
+++ b/mm/list_lru.c
@@ -81,8 +81,9 @@ restart:
 		 * decrement nr_to_walk first so that we don't livelock if we
 		 * get stuck on large numbesr of LRU_RETRY items
 		 */
-		if (--(*nr_to_walk) == 0)
+		if (!*nr_to_walk)
 			break;
+		--*nr_to_walk;
 
 		ret = isolate(item, &nlru->lock, cb_arg);
 		switch (ret) {