writeback: safer lock nesting

lock_page_memcg()/unlock_page_memcg() use spin_lock_irqsave/restore() if
the page's memcg is undergoing move accounting, which occurs when a
process leaves its memcg for a new one that has
memory.move_charge_at_immigrate set.

unlocked_inode_to_wb_begin,end() use spin_lock_irq/spin_unlock_irq() if
the given inode is switching writeback domains.  Switches occur when
enough writes are issued from a new domain.

This existing pattern is thus suspicious:
    lock_page_memcg(page);
    unlocked_inode_to_wb_begin(inode, &locked);
    ...
    unlocked_inode_to_wb_end(inode, locked);
    unlock_page_memcg(page);

If both inode switch and process memcg migration are both in-flight then
unlocked_inode_to_wb_end() will unconditionally enable interrupts while
still holding the lock_page_memcg() irq spinlock.  This suggests the
possibility of deadlock if an interrupt occurs before unlock_page_memcg().

    truncate
    __cancel_dirty_page
    lock_page_memcg
    unlocked_inode_to_wb_begin
    unlocked_inode_to_wb_end
    <interrupts mistakenly enabled>
                                    <interrupt>
                                    end_page_writeback
                                    test_clear_page_writeback
                                    lock_page_memcg
                                    <deadlock>
    unlock_page_memcg

Due to configuration limitations this deadlock is not currently possible
because we don't mix cgroup writeback (a cgroupv2 feature) and
memory.move_charge_at_immigrate (a cgroupv1 feature).

If the kernel is hacked to always claim inode switching and memcg
moving_account, then this script triggers lockup in less than a minute:

  cd /mnt/cgroup/memory
  mkdir a b
  echo 1 > a/memory.move_charge_at_immigrate
  echo 1 > b/memory.move_charge_at_immigrate
  (
    echo $BASHPID > a/cgroup.procs
    while true; do
      dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/big bs=1M count=256
    done
  ) &
  while true; do
    sync
  done &
  sleep 1h &
  SLEEP=$!
  while true; do
    echo $SLEEP > a/cgroup.procs
    echo $SLEEP > b/cgroup.procs
  done

The deadlock does not seem possible, so it's debatable if there's any
reason to modify the kernel.  I suggest we should to prevent future
surprises.  And Wang Long said "this deadlock occurs three times in our
environment", so there's more reason to apply this, even to stable.
Stable 4.4 has minor conflicts applying this patch.  For a clean 4.4 patch
see "[PATCH for-4.4] writeback: safer lock nesting"
https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/4/11/146

Wang Long said "this deadlock occurs three times in our environment"

[gthelen@google.com: v4]
  Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20180411084653.254724-1-gthelen@google.com
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: comment tweaks, struct initialization simplification]
Change-Id: Ibb773e8045852978f6207074491d262f1b3fb613
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20180410005908.167976-1-gthelen@google.com
Fixes: 682aa8e1a6a1 ("writeback: implement unlocked_inode_to_wb transaction and use it for stat updates")
Signed-off-by: Greg Thelen <gthelen@google.com>
Reported-by: Wang Long <wanglong19@meituan.com>
Acked-by: Wang Long <wanglong19@meituan.com>
Acked-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com>
Reviewed-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Johannes Weiner <hannes@cmpxchg.org>
Cc: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
Cc: Nicholas Piggin <npiggin@gmail.com>
Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org>	[v4.2+]
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>

0 files changed, 0 insertions, 0 deletions