Re: [PATCH] mm: memcontrol: fix occasional OOMs due to proportional memory.low reclaim

Johannes Weiner
2021-08-19T20:38:59Z

On Thu, Aug 19, 2021 at 05:01:38PM +0200, Michal Hocko wrote:
> On Tue 17-08-21 14:05:06, Johannes Weiner wrote:
> > We've noticed occasional OOM killing when memory.low settings are in
> > effect for cgroups. This is unexpected and undesirable as memory.low
> > is supposed to express non-OOMing memory priorities between cgroups.
> >
> > The reason for this is proportional memory.low reclaim. When cgroups
> > are below their memory.low threshold, reclaim passes them over in the
> > first round, and then retries if it couldn't find pages anywhere else.
> > But when cgroups are slighly above their memory.low setting, page scan
> > force is scaled down and diminished in proportion to the overage, to
> > the point where it can cause reclaim to fail as well - only in that
> > case we currently don't retry, and instead trigger OOM.
> >
> > To fix this, hook proportional reclaim into the same retry logic we
> > have in place for when cgroups are skipped entirely. This way if
> > reclaim fails and some cgroups were scanned with dimished pressure,
> > we'll try another full-force cycle before giving up and OOMing.
> >
> > Reported-by: Leon Yang <lnyng@fb.com>
> > Signed-off-by: Johannes Weiner <hannes@cmpxchg.org>
>
> Acked-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com>

Thanks

>
> Although I have to say that the code is quite tricky and it deserves
> more comments. See below.
>
> [...]
> > @@ -2576,6 +2578,15 @@ static void get_scan_count(struct lruvec *lruvec, struct scan_control *sc,
> > * hard protection.
> > */
> > unsigned long cgroup_size = mem_cgroup_size(memcg);
> > + unsigned long protection;
> > +
> > + /* memory.low scaling, make sure we retry before OOM */
> > + if (!sc->memcg_low_reclaim && low > min) {
> > + protection = low;
> > + sc->memcg_low_skipped = 1;
> > + } else {
> > + protection = min;
> > + }
>
> Just by looking at this in isolation one could be really curious how
> does this not break the low memory protection altogether.

You're right, it's a bit too terse.

> The logic is spread over 3 different places.
>
> Would something like the following be more understandable?
>
> /*
> * Low limit protected memcgs are already excluded at
> * a higher level (shrink_node_memcgs) but scaling
> * down the reclaim target can result in hard to
> * reclaim and premature OOM. We do not have a full
> * picture here so we cannot really judge this
> * sutuation here but pro-actively flag this scenario
> * and let do_try_to_free_pages to retry if
> * there is no progress.
> */

I've been drafting around with this, but it seems to say the same
thing as the comment I put into struct scan_control already:

/*
* Cgroup memory below memory.low is protected as long as we
* don't threaten to OOM. If any cgroup is reclaimed at
* reduced force or passed over entirely due to its memory.low
* setting (memcg_low_skipped), and nothing is reclaimed as a
* result, then go back back for one more cycle that reclaims
* the protected memory (memcg_low_reclaim) to avert OOM.
*/

How about a brief version of this with a pointer to the original?

diff --git a/mm/vmscan.c b/mm/vmscan.c
index 701106e1829c..c32d686719d5 100644
--- a/mm/vmscan.c
+++ b/mm/vmscan.c
@@ -2580,7 +2580,12 @@ static void get_scan_count(struct lruvec *lruvec, struct scan_control *sc,
unsigned long cgroup_size = mem_cgroup_size(memcg);
unsigned long protection;

- /* memory.low scaling, make sure we retry before OOM */
+ /*
+ * Soft protection must not cause reclaim failure. Let
+ * the upper level know if we skipped pages during the
+ * first pass, so it can retry if necessary. See the
+ * struct scan_control definition of those flags.
+ */
if (!sc->memcg_low_reclaim && low > min) {
protection = low;
sc->memcg_low_skipped = 1;
@@ -2853,16 +2858,16 @@ static void shrink_node_memcgs(pg_data_t *pgdat, struct scan_control *sc)

if (mem_cgroup_below_min(memcg)) {
/*
- * Hard protection.
- * If there is no reclaimable memory, OOM.
+ * Hard protection. Always respected. If there is not
+ * enough reclaimable memory elsewhere, it's an OOM.
*/
continue;
} else if (mem_cgroup_below_low(memcg)) {
/*
- * Soft protection.
- * Respect the protection only as long as
- * there is an unprotected supply
- * of reclaimable memory from other cgroups.
+ * Soft protection must not cause reclaim failure. Let
+ * the upper level know if we skipped pages during the
+ * first pass, so it can retry if necessary. See the
+ * struct scan_control definition of those flags.
*/
if (!sc->memcg_low_reclaim) {
sc->memcg_low_skipped = 1;