Re: [rfc patch 3/3] mm: munlock COW pages on truncation unmap

From: KOSAKI Motohiro
Date: Mon Oct 05 2009 - 21:12:38 EST


> ---
> From: Johannes Weiner <hannes@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: mm: order evictable rescue in LRU putback
>
> Isolators putting a page back to the LRU do not hold the page lock,
> and if the page is mlocked, another thread might munlock it
> concurrently.
>
> Expecting this, the putback code re-checks the evictability of a page
> when it just moved it to the unevictable list in order to correct its
> decision.
>
> The problem, however, is that ordering is not garuanteed between
> setting PG_lru when moving the page to the list and checking
> PG_mlocked afterwards:
>
> #0 putback #1 munlock
>
> spin_lock()
> if (TestClearPageMlocked())
> if (PageLRU())
> move to evictable list
> SetPageLRU()
> spin_unlock()
> if (!PageMlocked())
> move to evictable list
>
> The PageMlocked() reading may get reordered before SetPageLRU() in #0,
> resulting in #0 not moving the still mlocked page, and in #1 failing
> to isolate and move the page as well. The evictable page is now
> stranded on the unevictable list.
>
> TestClearPageMlocked() in #1 already provides full memory barrier
> semantics.
>
> This patch adds an explicit full barrier to force ordering between
> SetPageLRU() and PageMlocked() in #0 so that either one of the
> competitors rescues the page.
>
> Signed-off-by: Johannes Weiner <hannes@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Hugh Dickins <hugh.dickins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Mel Gorman <mel@xxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Lee Schermerhorn <Lee.Schermerhorn@xxxxxx>
> Cc: Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@xxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> mm/vmscan.c | 10 ++++++++++
> 1 file changed, 10 insertions(+)
>
> --- a/mm/vmscan.c
> +++ b/mm/vmscan.c
> @@ -544,6 +544,16 @@ redo:
> */
> lru = LRU_UNEVICTABLE;
> add_page_to_unevictable_list(page);
> + /*
> + * When racing with an mlock clearing (page is
> + * unlocked), make sure that if the other thread does
> + * not observe our setting of PG_lru and fails
> + * isolation, we see PG_mlocked cleared below and move
> + * the page back to the evictable list.
> + *
> + * The other side is TestClearPageMlocked().
> + */
> + smp_mb();
> }

IA64 is most relax cpu reorder architecture. I'm usually test on it
and my test found no problem.
Then, I don't think this issue occur in the real world. but I think
this patch is right.

Hannes, you are great.

Reviewed-by: KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>





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