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mm: teach mm by current context info to not do I/O during memory allo…
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…cation

This patch introduces PF_MEMALLOC_NOIO on process flag('flags' field of
'struct task_struct'), so that the flag can be set by one task to avoid
doing I/O inside memory allocation in the task's context.

The patch trys to solve one deadlock problem caused by block device, and
the problem may happen at least in the below situations:

- during block device runtime resume, if memory allocation with
  GFP_KERNEL is called inside runtime resume callback of any one of its
  ancestors(or the block device itself), the deadlock may be triggered
  inside the memory allocation since it might not complete until the block
  device becomes active and the involed page I/O finishes.  The situation
  is pointed out first by Alan Stern.  It is not a good approach to
  convert all GFP_KERNEL[1] in the path into GFP_NOIO because several
  subsystems may be involved(for example, PCI, USB and SCSI may be
  involved for usb mass stoarage device, network devices involved too in
  the iSCSI case)

- during block device runtime suspend, because runtime resume need to
  wait for completion of concurrent runtime suspend.

- during error handling of usb mass storage deivce, USB bus reset will
  be put on the device, so there shouldn't have any memory allocation with
  GFP_KERNEL during USB bus reset, otherwise the deadlock similar with
  above may be triggered.  Unfortunately, any usb device may include one
  mass storage interface in theory, so it requires all usb interface
  drivers to handle the situation.  In fact, most usb drivers don't know
  how to handle bus reset on the device and don't provide .pre_set() and
  .post_reset() callback at all, so USB core has to unbind and bind driver
  for these devices.  So it is still not practical to resort to GFP_NOIO
  for solving the problem.

Also the introduced solution can be used by block subsystem or block
drivers too, for example, set the PF_MEMALLOC_NOIO flag before doing
actual I/O transfer.

It is not a good idea to convert all these GFP_KERNEL in the affected
path into GFP_NOIO because these functions doing that may be implemented
as library and will be called in many other contexts.

In fact, memalloc_noio_flags() can convert some of current static
GFP_NOIO allocation into GFP_KERNEL back in other non-affected contexts,
at least almost all GFP_NOIO in USB subsystem can be converted into
GFP_KERNEL after applying the approach and make allocation with GFP_NOIO
only happen in runtime resume/bus reset/block I/O transfer contexts
generally.

[1], several GFP_KERNEL allocation examples in runtime resume path

- pci subsystem
acpi_os_allocate
	<-acpi_ut_allocate
		<-ACPI_ALLOCATE_ZEROED
			<-acpi_evaluate_object
				<-__acpi_bus_set_power
					<-acpi_bus_set_power
						<-acpi_pci_set_power_state
							<-platform_pci_set_power_state
								<-pci_platform_power_transition
									<-__pci_complete_power_transition
										<-pci_set_power_state
											<-pci_restore_standard_config
												<-pci_pm_runtime_resume
- usb subsystem
usb_get_status
	<-finish_port_resume
		<-usb_port_resume
			<-generic_resume
				<-usb_resume_device
					<-usb_resume_both
						<-usb_runtime_resume

- some individual usb drivers
usblp, uvc, gspca, most of dvb-usb-v2 media drivers, cpia2, az6007, ....

That is just what I have found.  Unfortunately, this allocation can only
be found by human being now, and there should be many not found since
any function in the resume path(call tree) may allocate memory with
GFP_KERNEL.

Signed-off-by: Ming Lei <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Minchan Kim <[email protected]>
Cc: Alan Stern <[email protected]>
Cc: Oliver Neukum <[email protected]>
Cc: Jiri Kosina <[email protected]>
Cc: Mel Gorman <[email protected]>
Cc: KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <[email protected]>
Cc: Michal Hocko <[email protected]>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <[email protected]>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <[email protected]>
Cc: "Rafael J. Wysocki" <[email protected]>
Cc: Greg KH <[email protected]>
Cc: Jens Axboe <[email protected]>
Cc: "David S. Miller" <[email protected]>
Cc: Eric Dumazet <[email protected]>
Cc: David Decotigny <[email protected]>
Cc: Tom Herbert <[email protected]>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <[email protected]>
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Ming Lei authored and torvalds committed Feb 24, 2013
1 parent 258401a commit 21caf2f
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Showing 3 changed files with 32 additions and 3 deletions.
22 changes: 22 additions & 0 deletions include/linux/sched.h
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -51,6 +51,7 @@ struct sched_param {
#include <linux/cred.h>
#include <linux/llist.h>
#include <linux/uidgid.h>
#include <linux/gfp.h>

#include <asm/processor.h>

Expand Down Expand Up @@ -1791,6 +1792,7 @@ extern void thread_group_cputime_adjusted(struct task_struct *p, cputime_t *ut,
#define PF_FROZEN 0x00010000 /* frozen for system suspend */
#define PF_FSTRANS 0x00020000 /* inside a filesystem transaction */
#define PF_KSWAPD 0x00040000 /* I am kswapd */
#define PF_MEMALLOC_NOIO 0x00080000 /* Allocating memory without IO involved */
#define PF_LESS_THROTTLE 0x00100000 /* Throttle me less: I clean memory */
#define PF_KTHREAD 0x00200000 /* I am a kernel thread */
#define PF_RANDOMIZE 0x00400000 /* randomize virtual address space */
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -1828,6 +1830,26 @@ extern void thread_group_cputime_adjusted(struct task_struct *p, cputime_t *ut,
#define tsk_used_math(p) ((p)->flags & PF_USED_MATH)
#define used_math() tsk_used_math(current)

/* __GFP_IO isn't allowed if PF_MEMALLOC_NOIO is set in current->flags */
static inline gfp_t memalloc_noio_flags(gfp_t flags)
{
if (unlikely(current->flags & PF_MEMALLOC_NOIO))
flags &= ~__GFP_IO;
return flags;
}

static inline unsigned int memalloc_noio_save(void)
{
unsigned int flags = current->flags & PF_MEMALLOC_NOIO;
current->flags |= PF_MEMALLOC_NOIO;
return flags;
}

static inline void memalloc_noio_restore(unsigned int flags)
{
current->flags = (current->flags & ~PF_MEMALLOC_NOIO) | flags;
}

/*
* task->jobctl flags
*/
Expand Down
9 changes: 8 additions & 1 deletion mm/page_alloc.c
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -2624,10 +2624,17 @@ __alloc_pages_nodemask(gfp_t gfp_mask, unsigned int order,
page = get_page_from_freelist(gfp_mask|__GFP_HARDWALL, nodemask, order,
zonelist, high_zoneidx, alloc_flags,
preferred_zone, migratetype);
if (unlikely(!page))
if (unlikely(!page)) {
/*
* Runtime PM, block IO and its error handling path
* can deadlock because I/O on the device might not
* complete.
*/
gfp_mask = memalloc_noio_flags(gfp_mask);
page = __alloc_pages_slowpath(gfp_mask, order,
zonelist, high_zoneidx, nodemask,
preferred_zone, migratetype);
}

trace_mm_page_alloc(page, order, gfp_mask, migratetype);

Expand Down
4 changes: 2 additions & 2 deletions mm/vmscan.c
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -2352,7 +2352,7 @@ unsigned long try_to_free_pages(struct zonelist *zonelist, int order,
{
unsigned long nr_reclaimed;
struct scan_control sc = {
.gfp_mask = gfp_mask,
.gfp_mask = (gfp_mask = memalloc_noio_flags(gfp_mask)),
.may_writepage = !laptop_mode,
.nr_to_reclaim = SWAP_CLUSTER_MAX,
.may_unmap = 1,
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -3313,7 +3313,7 @@ static int __zone_reclaim(struct zone *zone, gfp_t gfp_mask, unsigned int order)
.may_unmap = !!(zone_reclaim_mode & RECLAIM_SWAP),
.may_swap = 1,
.nr_to_reclaim = max(nr_pages, SWAP_CLUSTER_MAX),
.gfp_mask = gfp_mask,
.gfp_mask = (gfp_mask = memalloc_noio_flags(gfp_mask)),
.order = order,
.priority = ZONE_RECLAIM_PRIORITY,
};
Expand Down

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