Re: [PATCH] mm: avoid bothering interrupted task when charge memcg in softirq

[Michal Hocko <mhocko@kernel.org>]

On Mon 16-07-18 17:45:06, Yafang Shao wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 16, 2018 at 3:58 PM, Michal Hocko <mhocko@kernel.org> wrote:
> > On Sat 14-07-18 16:32:02, Yafang Shao wrote:
> >> try_charge maybe executed in packet receive path, which is in interrupt
> >> context.
> >> In this situation, the 'current' is the interrupted task, which may has
> >> no relation to the rx softirq, So it is nonsense to use 'current'.
> >>
> >> Avoid bothering the interrupted if page_counter_try_charge failes.
> >
> > I agree with Shakeel that this changelog asks for more information about
> > "why it matters". Small inconsistencies should be tolerable because the
> > state we rely on is so rarely set that it shouldn't make a visible
> > difference in practice.
> >
> 
> HI Michal,
> 
> No, it can make a visible difference in pratice.
> The difference is in __sk_mem_raise_allocated().
> 
> Without this patch, if the random interrupted task is oom victim or
> fatal signal pending or exiting, the charge will success anyway. That
> means the cgroup limit doesn't work in this situation.
> 
> With this patch, in the same situation the charged memory will be
> uncharged as it hits the memcg limit.
> 
> That is okay if the memcg of the interrupted task is same with the
> sk->sk_memcg,  but it may not okay if they are difference.
> 
> I'm trying to prove it, but seems it's very hard to produce this issue.

So it is possible that this is so marginal that it doesn't make any
_practical_ impact after all.

-- 
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs