Re: [PATCH] mm: compaction beware writeback

On Sat, Mar 19, 2011 at 11:27:38PM -0700, Hugh Dickins wrote:

I notice there's a Bug 31142 "Large write to USB stick freezes"
discussion happening (which I've not digested), for which Andrea
is proposing a patch which reminds me of this one.  Thought I'd
better throw this into the mix for consideration.

I'd not sent it in yet, because I only see the problem on one machine,
and then only with a shmem patch I'm working up; but can't see how
that patch would actually be necessary to create the problem.

It happens in my extfs-on-loop-on-tmpfs swapping tests, when copying
in the kernel tree.  I believe the relevant traces are these three:
I notice sync_supers there every time it hangs, but I guess it comes
along after, and gets stuck on the same page which cp is waiting for.

D  sync_supers:
schedule +0x670
io_schedule +0x50
sync_buffer +0x68
__wait_on_bit +0x90
out_of_line_wait_on_bit +0x98
__wait_on_buffer +0x30
__sync_dirty_buffer +0xc0
ext4_commit_super +0x2c4
ext4_write_super +0x28
sync_supers +0xdc
bdi_sync_supers +0x40
kthread +0xac
kernel_thread +0x54

D  loop0:
schedule +0x670
io_schedule +0x50
sync_page +0x84
__wait_on_bit +0x90
wait_on_page_bit +0xa4
unmap_and_move +0x180
migrate_pages +0xbc
compact_zone +0xbc
compact_zone_order +0xc8
try_to_compact_pages +0x104
__alloc_pages_direct_compact +0xc0
__alloc_pages_nodemask +0x68c
allocate_slab +0x84
new_slab +0x58
__slab_alloc +0x1ec
kmem_cache_alloc +0x7c
radix_tree_preload +0x94
add_to_page_cache_locked +0x78
shmem_getpage +0x208
pagecache_write_begin +0x2c
do_lo_send_aops +0xc0
do_bio_filebacked +0x11c
loop_thread +0x204
kthread +0xac
kernel_thread +0x54

D  cp:
schedule +0x670
io_schedule +0x50
sync_buffer +0x68
__wait_on_bit +0x90
out_of_line_wait_on_bit +0x98
__wait_on_buffer +0x30
ext4_find_entry +0x230
ext4_lookup +0x44
d_alloc_and_lookup +0x74
do_last +0xe0
do_filp_open +0x2b8
do_sys_open +0x8c
compat_sys_open +0x24
syscall_exit +0x0

I believe (but haven't verified for sure) that what happens is that
compaction (when trying to allocate a radix_tree node - SLUB asks
for order 2 - in the loop0 daemon trace) chooses the cp page under
writeback which is waiting for loop0 to write it.

So I've extended your earlier PF_MEMALLOC patch to prevent waiting for
writeback as well as waiting for pagelock.  And I've never seen the
hang again since putting this patch in.

Signed-off-by: Hugh Dickins <hughd@google.com>

Yes, it is the case that waiting on page writeback can also cause
badness and I think this should also be considered for -stable.

Acked-by: Mel Gorman <redacted>

Thanks

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