Re: mm, vmstat: kernel BUG at mm/vmstat.c:1408!

From: Michal Hocko
Date: Thu Jan 21 2016 - 11:51:57 EST


On Thu 21-01-16 09:45:12, Christoph Lameter wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Jan 2016, Michal Hocko wrote:
[...]
> > The vmstat update might be still waiting for its timer, idle mode started
> > and kick vmstat_update which might cpumask_test_and_set_cpu. Once the
> > idle terminates and the originally schedule vmstate_update executes it
> > sees the bit set and BUG_ON.
>
> Ok so we are going into idle mode and the vmstat_update timer is pending.
> Then the timer will not fire since going idle switches preemption off.
> quiet_vmstat will run without the chance of running vmstat_update
>
> We could be going idle and not have disabled preemption yet. Then
> vmstat_update will run. On return to the idling operation preemption will
> be disabled and quiet_vmstat() will be run.
>
> I do not see how these two things could race.

It goes like this:
CPU0: CPU1
vmstat_update
cpumask_test_and_set_cpu (0->1)
[...]
vmstat_shepherd
<enter idle> cpumask_test_and_clear_cpu(CPU0) (1->0)
quiet_vmstat
cpumask_test_and_set_cpu (0->1)
queue_delayed_work_on(CPU0)
refresh_cpu_vm_stats()
[...]
vmstat_update
nothing_to_do
cpumask_test_and_set_cpu (1->1)
VM_BUG_ON

Or am I missing something?
--
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs