linux/mm
Dave Chinner 64081362e8 mm/page-writeback.c: fix range_cyclic writeback vs writepages deadlock
We've recently seen a workload on XFS filesystems with a repeatable
deadlock between background writeback and a multi-process application
doing concurrent writes and fsyncs to a small range of a file.

range_cyclic
writeback		Process 1		Process 2

xfs_vm_writepages
  write_cache_pages
    writeback_index = 2
    cycled = 0
    ....
    find page 2 dirty
    lock Page 2
    ->writepage
      page 2 writeback
      page 2 clean
      page 2 added to bio
    no more pages
			write()
			locks page 1
			dirties page 1
			locks page 2
			dirties page 1
			fsync()
			....
			xfs_vm_writepages
			write_cache_pages
			  start index 0
			  find page 1 towrite
			  lock Page 1
			  ->writepage
			    page 1 writeback
			    page 1 clean
			    page 1 added to bio
			  find page 2 towrite
			  lock Page 2
			  page 2 is writeback
			  <blocks>
						write()
						locks page 1
						dirties page 1
						fsync()
						....
						xfs_vm_writepages
						write_cache_pages
						  start index 0

    !done && !cycled
      sets index to 0, restarts lookup
    find page 1 dirty
						  find page 1 towrite
						  lock Page 1
						  page 1 is writeback
						  <blocks>

    lock Page 1
    <blocks>

DEADLOCK because:

	- process 1 needs page 2 writeback to complete to make
	  enough progress to issue IO pending for page 1
	- writeback needs page 1 writeback to complete so process 2
	  can progress and unlock the page it is blocked on, then it
	  can issue the IO pending for page 2
	- process 2 can't make progress until process 1 issues IO
	  for page 1

The underlying cause of the problem here is that range_cyclic writeback is
processing pages in descending index order as we hold higher index pages
in a structure controlled from above write_cache_pages().  The
write_cache_pages() caller needs to be able to submit these pages for IO
before write_cache_pages restarts writeback at mapping index 0 to avoid
wcp inverting the page lock/writeback wait order.

generic_writepages() is not susceptible to this bug as it has no private
context held across write_cache_pages() - filesystems using this
infrastructure always submit pages in ->writepage immediately and so there
is no problem with range_cyclic going back to mapping index 0.

However:
	mpage_writepages() has a private bio context,
	exofs_writepages() has page_collect
	fuse_writepages() has fuse_fill_wb_data
	nfs_writepages() has nfs_pageio_descriptor
	xfs_vm_writepages() has xfs_writepage_ctx

All of these ->writepages implementations can hold pages under writeback
in their private structures until write_cache_pages() returns, and hence
they are all susceptible to this deadlock.

Also worth noting is that ext4 has it's own bastardised version of
write_cache_pages() and so it /may/ have an equivalent deadlock.  I looked
at the code long enough to understand that it has a similar retry loop for
range_cyclic writeback reaching the end of the file and then promptly ran
away before my eyes bled too much.  I'll leave it for the ext4 developers
to determine if their code is actually has this deadlock and how to fix it
if it has.

There's a few ways I can see avoid this deadlock.  There's probably more,
but these are the first I've though of:

1. get rid of range_cyclic altogether

2. range_cyclic always stops at EOF, and we start again from
writeback index 0 on the next call into write_cache_pages()

2a. wcp also returns EAGAIN to ->writepages implementations to
indicate range cyclic has hit EOF. writepages implementations can
then flush the current context and call wpc again to continue. i.e.
lift the retry into the ->writepages implementation

3. range_cyclic uses trylock_page() rather than lock_page(), and it
skips pages it can't lock without blocking. It will already do this
for pages under writeback, so this seems like a no-brainer

3a. all non-WB_SYNC_ALL writeback uses trylock_page() to avoid
blocking as per pages under writeback.

I don't think #1 is an option - range_cyclic prevents frequently
dirtied lower file offset from starving background writeback of
rarely touched higher file offsets.

#2 is simple, and I don't think it will have any impact on
performance as going back to the start of the file implies an
immediate seek. We'll have exactly the same number of seeks if we
switch writeback to another inode, and then come back to this one
later and restart from index 0.

#2a is pretty much "status quo without the deadlock". Moving the
retry loop up into the wcp caller means we can issue IO on the
pending pages before calling wcp again, and so avoid locking or
waiting on pages in the wrong order. I'm not convinced we need to do
this given that we get the same thing from #2 on the next writeback
call from the writeback infrastructure.

#3 is really just a band-aid - it doesn't fix the access/wait
inversion problem, just prevents it from becoming a deadlock
situation. I'd prefer we fix the inversion, not sweep it under the
carpet like this.

#3a is really an optimisation that just so happens to include the
band-aid fix of #3.

So it seems that the simplest way to fix this issue is to implement
solution #2

Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20181005054526.21507-1-david@fromorbit.com
Signed-off-by: Dave Chinner <dchinner@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.de>
Cc: Nicholas Piggin <npiggin@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2018-10-26 16:38:14 -07:00
..
kasan kernel/memremap, kasan: make ZONE_DEVICE with work with KASAN 2018-08-17 16:20:30 -07:00
backing-dev.c blkcg: delay blkg destruction until after writeback has finished 2018-08-31 14:48:56 -06:00
balloon_compaction.c virtio_balloon: fix deadlock on OOM 2017-11-14 23:57:38 +02:00
bootmem.c docs/mm: bootmem: add overview documentation 2018-08-02 12:17:27 -06:00
cleancache.c mm: use octal not symbolic permissions 2018-06-15 07:55:25 +09:00
cma_debug.c mm/cma: remove unsupported gfp_mask parameter from cma_alloc() 2018-08-17 16:20:32 -07:00
cma.c mm/cma: remove unsupported gfp_mask parameter from cma_alloc() 2018-08-17 16:20:32 -07:00
cma.h License cleanup: add SPDX GPL-2.0 license identifier to files with no license 2017-11-02 11:10:55 +01:00
compaction.c psi: pressure stall information for CPU, memory, and IO 2018-10-26 16:26:32 -07:00
debug_page_ref.c License cleanup: add SPDX GPL-2.0 license identifier to files with no license 2017-11-02 11:10:55 +01:00
debug.c mm: provide kernel parameter to allow disabling page init poisoning 2018-10-26 16:26:34 -07:00
dmapool.c mm: use octal not symbolic permissions 2018-06-15 07:55:25 +09:00
early_ioremap.c mm/early_ioremap: Fix boot hang with earlyprintk=efi,keep 2017-12-11 14:54:44 +01:00
fadvise.c vfs: implement readahead(2) using POSIX_FADV_WILLNEED 2018-08-30 20:01:32 +02:00
failslab.c mm: use octal not symbolic permissions 2018-06-15 07:55:25 +09:00
filemap.c mm/filemap.c: use vmf_error() 2018-10-26 16:26:35 -07:00
frame_vector.c mm/frame_vector.c: release a semaphore in 'get_vaddr_frames()' 2017-12-14 16:00:48 -08:00
frontswap.c mm: use octal not symbolic permissions 2018-06-15 07:55:25 +09:00
gup_benchmark.c mm/gup_benchmark: fix unsigned comparison to zero in __gup_benchmark_ioctl 2018-10-05 16:32:04 -07:00
gup.c mm: remove unnecessary local variable addr in __get_user_pages_fast() 2018-10-26 16:26:34 -07:00
highmem.c License cleanup: add SPDX GPL-2.0 license identifier to files with no license 2017-11-02 11:10:55 +01:00
hmm.c mm: defer ZONE_DEVICE page initialization to the point where we init pgmap 2018-10-26 16:26:34 -07:00
huge_memory.c mm: workingset: tell cache transitions from workingset thrashing 2018-10-26 16:26:32 -07:00
hugetlb_cgroup.c mm: rename page_counter's count/limit into usage/max 2018-06-07 17:34:35 -07:00
hugetlb.c hugetlb: take PMD sharing into account when flushing tlb/caches 2018-10-05 16:32:04 -07:00
hwpoison-inject.c mm/memory_failure: Remove unused trapno from memory_failure 2018-01-23 12:17:42 -06:00
init-mm.c mm: Allocate the mm_cpumask (mm->cpu_bitmap[]) dynamically based on nr_cpu_ids 2018-07-17 09:35:30 +02:00
internal.h mm: Change return type int to vm_fault_t for fault handlers 2018-08-23 18:48:44 -07:00
interval_tree.c mm/interval_tree.c: use vma_pages() helper 2018-01-31 17:18:37 -08:00
Kconfig mm: disable deferred struct page for 32-bit arches 2018-09-20 22:01:11 +02:00
Kconfig.debug mm: clarify CONFIG_PAGE_POISONING and usage 2018-08-22 10:52:44 -07:00
khugepaged.c mm: Change return type int to vm_fault_t for fault handlers 2018-08-23 18:48:44 -07:00
kmemleak-test.c
kmemleak.c kmemleak: add module param to print warnings to dmesg 2018-10-26 16:25:19 -07:00
ksm.c include/linux/compiler*.h: make compiler-*.h mutually exclusive 2018-08-22 17:31:34 -07:00
list_lru.c mm/list_lru: introduce list_lru_shrink_walk_irq() 2018-08-17 16:20:32 -07:00
maccess.c x86/fault: BUG() when uaccess helpers fault on kernel addresses 2018-09-03 15:12:09 +02:00
madvise.c mm: madvise(MADV_DODUMP): allow hugetlbfs pages 2018-10-05 16:32:05 -07:00
Makefile arm64 updates for 4.20: 2018-10-22 17:30:06 +01:00
memblock.c mm: provide kernel parameter to allow disabling page init poisoning 2018-10-26 16:26:34 -07:00
memcontrol.c mm/memcontrol.c: convert mem_cgroup_id::ref to refcount_t type 2018-10-26 16:26:35 -07:00
memfd.c alloc_file(): switch to passing O_... flags instead of FMODE_... mode 2018-07-12 10:02:57 -04:00
memory_hotplug.c mm/memory_hotplug.c: clean up node_states_check_changes_offline() 2018-10-26 16:26:33 -07:00
memory-failure.c libnvdimm-for-4.19_dax-memory-failure 2018-08-25 18:43:59 -07:00
memory.c mm/memory.c: recheck page table entry with page table lock held 2018-10-26 16:26:35 -07:00
mempolicy.c mm/mempolicy.c: use match_string() helper to simplify the code 2018-10-26 16:26:33 -07:00
mempool.c mm/mempool.c: add missing parameter description 2018-08-22 10:52:44 -07:00
memtest.c License cleanup: add SPDX GPL-2.0 license identifier to files with no license 2017-11-02 11:10:55 +01:00
migrate.c mm: workingset: tell cache transitions from workingset thrashing 2018-10-26 16:26:32 -07:00
mincore.c License cleanup: add SPDX GPL-2.0 license identifier to files with no license 2017-11-02 11:10:55 +01:00
mlock.c dax: remove VM_MIXEDMAP for fsdax and device dax 2018-08-17 16:20:27 -07:00
mm_init.c mm: access zone->node via zone_to_nid() and zone_set_nid() 2018-08-22 10:52:45 -07:00
mmap.c mm: brk: downgrade mmap_sem to read when shrinking 2018-10-26 16:26:35 -07:00
mmu_context.c
mmu_gather.c mm/memory: Move mmu_gather and TLB invalidation code into its own file 2018-09-07 15:19:25 +01:00
mmu_notifier.c Revert "mm, mmu_notifier: annotate mmu notifiers with blockable invalidate callbacks" 2018-10-26 16:25:19 -07:00
mmzone.c License cleanup: add SPDX GPL-2.0 license identifier to files with no license 2017-11-02 11:10:55 +01:00
mprotect.c x86/speculation/l1tf: Disallow non privileged high MMIO PROT_NONE mappings 2018-06-20 19:10:01 +02:00
mremap.c mm: mremap: downgrade mmap_sem to read when shrinking 2018-10-26 16:26:35 -07:00
msync.c License cleanup: add SPDX GPL-2.0 license identifier to files with no license 2017-11-02 11:10:55 +01:00
nobootmem.c mm/memblock: add a name for memblock flags enumeration 2018-08-02 12:17:27 -06:00
nommu.c mm: provide a fallback for PAGE_KERNEL_EXEC for architectures 2018-08-17 16:20:29 -07:00
oom_kill.c Merge branch 'siginfo-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/ebiederm/user-namespace 2018-10-24 11:22:39 +01:00
page_alloc.c mm: move mirrored memory specific code outside of memmap_init_zone 2018-10-26 16:38:10 -07:00
page_counter.c memcg: introduce memory.min 2018-06-07 17:34:36 -07:00
page_ext.c mm/page_ext.c: constify lookup_page_ext() argument 2018-08-17 16:20:28 -07:00
page_idle.c mm: use octal not symbolic permissions 2018-06-15 07:55:25 +09:00
page_io.c blkcg: associate a blkg for pages being evicted by swap 2018-09-21 20:29:09 -06:00
page_isolation.c mm, migrate: remove reason argument from new_page_t 2018-04-11 10:28:32 -07:00
page_owner.c mm: use octal not symbolic permissions 2018-06-15 07:55:25 +09:00
page_poison.c mm/page_poison.c: make early_page_poison_param() __init 2018-04-05 21:36:26 -07:00
page_vma_mapped.c mm, page_vma_mapped: Introduce pfn_in_hpage() 2018-01-22 12:15:57 -08:00
page-writeback.c mm/page-writeback.c: fix range_cyclic writeback vs writepages deadlock 2018-10-26 16:38:14 -07:00
pagewalk.c mm: kernel-doc: add missing parameter descriptions 2018-04-05 21:36:27 -07:00
percpu-internal.h License cleanup: add SPDX GPL-2.0 license identifier to files with no license 2017-11-02 11:10:55 +01:00
percpu-km.c percpu: allow select gfp to be passed to underlying allocators 2018-02-18 05:33:01 -08:00
percpu-stats.c treewide: Use array_size() in vmalloc() 2018-06-12 16:19:22 -07:00
percpu-vm.c percpu: allow select gfp to be passed to underlying allocators 2018-02-18 05:33:01 -08:00
percpu.c percpu: stop leaking bitmap metadata blocks 2018-10-07 14:50:12 -07:00
pgtable-generic.c x86/mm: Page size aware flush_tlb_mm_range() 2018-10-09 16:51:11 +02:00
process_vm_access.c mm: docs: add blank lines to silence sphinx "Unexpected indentation" errors 2018-02-06 18:32:48 -08:00
quicklist.c License cleanup: add SPDX GPL-2.0 license identifier to files with no license 2017-11-02 11:10:55 +01:00
readahead.c vfs: implement readahead(2) using POSIX_FADV_WILLNEED 2018-08-30 20:01:32 +02:00
rmap.c mm: migration: fix migration of huge PMD shared pages 2018-10-05 16:32:04 -07:00
rodata_test.c
shmem.c mm: shmem.c: Correctly annotate new inodes for lockdep 2018-09-20 22:01:11 +02:00
slab_common.c mm, slab: shorten kmalloc cache names for large sizes 2018-10-26 16:26:32 -07:00
slab.c mm, slab: combine kmalloc_caches and kmalloc_dma_caches 2018-10-26 16:26:31 -07:00
slab.h mm: introduce CONFIG_MEMCG_KMEM as combination of CONFIG_MEMCG && !CONFIG_SLOB 2018-08-17 16:20:30 -07:00
slob.c slab: __GFP_ZERO is incompatible with a constructor 2018-06-07 17:34:34 -07:00
slub.c mm, slab: combine kmalloc_caches and kmalloc_dma_caches 2018-10-26 16:26:31 -07:00
sparse-vmemmap.c mm/sparse: delete old sparse_init and enable new one 2018-08-17 16:20:32 -07:00
sparse.c mm: provide kernel parameter to allow disabling page init poisoning 2018-10-26 16:26:34 -07:00
swap_cgroup.c License cleanup: add SPDX GPL-2.0 license identifier to files with no license 2017-11-02 11:10:55 +01:00
swap_slots.c mm, swap, get_swap_pages: use entry_size instead of cluster in parameter 2018-08-22 10:52:44 -07:00
swap_state.c mm: workingset: tell cache transitions from workingset thrashing 2018-10-26 16:26:32 -07:00
swap.c mm/swap.c: remove duplicated include 2018-10-26 16:26:33 -07:00
swapfile.c mm/swapfile.c: clear si->swap_map[] in swap_free_cluster() 2018-10-26 16:25:19 -07:00
truncate.c page cache: use xa_lock 2018-04-11 10:28:39 -07:00
usercopy.c usercopy: Allow boot cmdline disabling of hardening 2018-07-04 08:04:52 -07:00
userfaultfd.c userfaultfd: prevent non-cooperative events vs mcopy_atomic races 2018-06-07 17:34:38 -07:00
util.c kvfree(): fix misleading comment 2018-10-26 16:26:33 -07:00
vmacache.c mm: get rid of vmacache_flush_all() entirely 2018-09-13 15:18:04 -10:00
vmalloc.c vfree: add debug might_sleep() 2018-10-26 16:26:33 -07:00
vmpressure.c mm/vmpressure.c: convert to use match_string() helper 2018-06-07 17:34:36 -07:00
vmscan.c mm: zero-seek shrinkers 2018-10-26 16:26:33 -07:00
vmstat.c mm/vmstat.c: assert that vmstat_text is in sync with stat_items_size 2018-10-26 16:26:35 -07:00
workingset.c mm: zero-seek shrinkers 2018-10-26 16:26:33 -07:00
z3fold.c z3fold: fix reclaim lock-ups 2018-05-11 17:28:45 -07:00
zbud.c mm: docs: fix parameter names mismatch 2018-02-06 18:32:48 -08:00
zpool.c mm/zpool.c: zpool_evictable: fix mismatch in parameter name and kernel-doc 2018-02-21 15:35:43 -08:00
zsmalloc.c mm/zsmalloc.c: fix fall-through annotation 2018-10-26 16:26:35 -07:00
zswap.c zswap: re-check zswap_is_full() after do zswap_shrink() 2018-07-26 19:38:03 -07:00