On Sun 09-12-12 08:59:54, Ying Han wrote:

On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 10:47 AM, Michal Hocko [off-list ref] wrote:

[...]

quoted

+               /*
+                * Even if we found a group we have to make sure it is alive.
+                * css && !memcg means that the groups should be skipped and
+                * we should continue the tree walk.
+                * last_visited css is safe to use because it is protected by
+                * css_get and the tree walk is rcu safe.
+                */
+               if (css == &root->css || (css && css_tryget(css)))
+                       memcg = mem_cgroup_from_css(css);

                if (reclaim) {
-                       iter->position = id;
+                       struct mem_cgroup *curr = memcg;
+
+                       if (last_visited)
+                               css_put(&last_visited->css);
+
+                       if (css && !memcg)
+                               curr = mem_cgroup_from_css(css);

In this case, the css_tryget() failed which implies the css is on the
way to be removed. (refcnt ==0) If so, why it is safe to call
css_get() directly on it below? It seems not preventing the css to be
removed by doing so.

Well, I do not remember exactly but I guess the code is meant to say
that we need to store a half-dead memcg because the loop has to be
retried. As we are under RCU hood it is just half dead.
Now that you brought this up I think this is not safe as well because
another thread could have seen the cached value while we tried to retry
and his RCU is not protecting the group anymore. The follow up patch
fixes this by retrying within the loop. I will bring that part into
this patch already and then leave only css clean up in the other patch.

Thanks for spotting this Ying!

quoted

+                       /* make sure that the cached memcg is not removed */
+                       if (curr)
+                               css_get(&curr->css);

--Ying

-- 
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs

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