Re: [PATCH -v2] memcg: don't do cleanup manually if mem_cgroup_css_online() fails

Li Zefan
2013-04-03T03:49:29Z

>> Yes, indeed you are very right - and thanks for looking at such depth.
>
> So what about the patch bellow? It seems that I provoked all this mess
> but my brain managed to push it away so I do not remember why I thought
> the parent needs reference drop... It is "only" 3.9 thing fortunately.
> ---
>>From 3aff5d958f1d0717795018f7d0d6b63d53ad1dd3 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> From: Li Zefan <lizefan-hv44wF8Li93QT0dZR+AlfA@public.gmane.org>
> Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2013 16:37:39 +0200
> Subject: [PATCH] memcg: don't do cleanup manually if mem_cgroup_css_online()
> fails
>
> mem_cgroup_css_online is called with memcg with refcnt = 1 and it
> expects that mem_cgroup_css_free will drop this last reference.
> This doesn't hold when memcg_init_kmem fails though and a reference is
> dropped for both memcg and its parent explicitly if it returns with an
> error.
>
> This is not correct for two reasons. Firstly mem_cgroup_put on parent is
> excessive because mem_cgroup_put is hierarchy aware and secondly only
> memcg_propagate_kmem takes an additional reference.
>
> The first one is a real use-after-free bug introduced by e4715f01
> (memcg: avoid dangling reference count in creation failure)
>
> The later one is non-issue right now because the only implementation
> of init_cgroup seems to be tcp_init_cgroup which doesn't fail
> but it is better to make the error handling saner and move the
> mem_cgroup_put(memcg) to memcg_propagate_kmem where it belongs.
>
> Signed-off-by: Li Zefan <lizefan-hv44wF8Li93QT0dZR+AlfA@public.gmane.org>
> Signed-off-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko-AlSwsSmVLrQ@public.gmane.org>
> ---
> mm/memcontrol.c | 13 +++----------
> 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 10 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/mm/memcontrol.c b/mm/memcontrol.c
> index f608546..cf9ba7e 100644
> --- a/mm/memcontrol.c
> +++ b/mm/memcontrol.c
> @@ -5306,6 +5306,8 @@ static int memcg_propagate_kmem(struct mem_cgroup *memcg)
> ret = memcg_update_cache_sizes(memcg);
> mutex_unlock(&set_limit_mutex);
> out:
> + if (ret)
> + mem_cgroup_put(memcg);

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think:

When memcg_propagate_kmem() calls mem_cgroup_get(), it's because the kmemcg
is active by inheritance. Then when memcg_update_cache_sizes() fails, leading
to mem_cgroup_css_free() is called by cgroup core:

static void mem_cgroup_css_free(struct cgroup *cont)
{
struct mem_cgroup *memcg = mem_cgroup_from_cont(cont);

kmem_cgroup_destroy(memcg);

mem_cgroup_put(memcg);
}

static void kmem_cgroup_destroy(struct mem_cgroup *memcg)
{
mem_cgroup_sockets_destroy(memcg);

memcg_kmem_mark_dead(memcg);

if (res_counter_read_u64(&memcg->kmem, RES_USAGE) != 0)
return;

if (memcg_kmem_test_and_clear_dead(memcg))
mem_cgroup_put(memcg); <------- !!!!!!!!!
}

> return ret;
> }
> #endif /* CONFIG_MEMCG_KMEM */
> @@ -6417,16 +6419,7 @@ mem_cgroup_css_online(struct cgroup *cont)
>
> error = memcg_init_kmem(memcg, &mem_cgroup_subsys);
> mutex_unlock(&memcg_create_mutex);
> - if (error) {
> - /*
> - * We call put now because our (and parent's) refcnts
> - * are already in place. mem_cgroup_put() will internally
> - * call __mem_cgroup_free, so return directly
> - */
> - mem_cgroup_put(memcg);
> - if (parent->use_hierarchy)
> - mem_cgroup_put(parent);
> - }
> +
> return error;
> }
>
>