Re: Report 2 in ext4 and journal based on v5.17-rc1

Jan Kara
2022-02-24T10:22:45Z

On Thu 24-02-22 10:11:02, Byungchul Park wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 23, 2022 at 03:48:59PM +0100, Jan Kara wrote:
> > > KJOURNALD2(kthread) TASK1(ksys_write) TASK2(ksys_write)
> > >
> > > wait A
> > > --- stuck
> > > wait B
> > > --- stuck
> > > wait C
> > > --- stuck
> > >
> > > wake up B wake up C wake up A
> > >
> > > where:
> > > A is a wait_queue, j_wait_commit
> > > B is a wait_queue, j_wait_transaction_locked
> > > C is a rwsem, mapping.invalidate_lock
> >
> > I see. But a situation like this is not necessarily a guarantee of a
> > deadlock, is it? I mean there can be task D that will eventually call say
> > 'wake up B' and unblock everything and this is how things were designed to
> > work? Multiple sources of wakeups are quite common I'd say... What does
>
> Yes. At the very beginning when I desgined Dept, I was thinking whether
> to support multiple wakeup sources or not for a quite long time.
> Supporting it would be a better option to aovid non-critical reports.
> However, I thought anyway we'd better fix it - not urgent tho - if
> there's any single circle dependency. That's why I decided not to
> support it for now and wanted to gather the kernel guys' opinions. Thing
> is which policy we should go with.

I see. So supporting only a single wakeup source is fine for locks I guess.
But for general wait queues or other synchronization mechanisms, I'm afraid
it will lead to quite some false positive reports. Just my 2c.

> > Dept do to prevent false reports in cases like this?
> >
> > > The above is the simplest form. And it's worth noting that Dept focuses
> > > on wait and event itself rather than grabing and releasing things like
> > > lock. The following is the more descriptive form of it.
> > >
> > > KJOURNALD2(kthread) TASK1(ksys_write) TASK2(ksys_write)
> > >
> > > wait @j_wait_commit
> > > ext4_truncate_failed_write()
> > > down_write(mapping.invalidate_lock)
> > >
> > > ext4_truncate()
> > > ...
> > > wait @j_wait_transaction_locked
> > >
> > > ext_truncate_failed_write()
> > > down_write(mapping.invalidate_lock)
> > >
> > > ext4_should_retry_alloc()
> > > ...
> > > __jbd2_log_start_commit()
> > > wake_up(j_wait_commit)
> > > jbd2_journal_commit_transaction()
> > > wake_up(j_wait_transaction_locked)
> > > up_write(mapping.invalidate_lock)
> > >
> > > I hope this would help you understand the report.
> >
> > I see, thanks for explanation! So the above scenario is impossible because
>
> My pleasure.
>
> > for anyone to block on @j_wait_transaction_locked the transaction must be
> > committing, which is done only by kjournald2 kthread and so that thread
> > cannot be waiting at @j_wait_commit. Essentially blocking on
> > @j_wait_transaction_locked means @j_wait_commit wakeup was already done.
>
> kjournal2 repeatedly does the wait and the wake_up so the above scenario
> looks possible to me even based on what you explained. Maybe I should
> understand how the journal things work more for furhter discussion. Your
> explanation is so helpful. Thank you really.

OK, let me provide you with more details for better understanding :) In
jbd2 we have an object called 'transaction'. This object can go through
many states but for our case is important that transaction is moved to
T_LOCKED state and out of it only while jbd2_journal_commit_transaction()
function is executing and waiting on j_wait_transaction_locked waitqueue is
exactly waiting for a transaction to get out of T_LOCKED state. Function
jbd2_journal_commit_transaction() is executed only by kjournald. Hence
anyone can see transaction in T_LOCKED state only if kjournald is running
inside jbd2_journal_commit_transaction() and thus kjournald cannot be
sleeping on j_wait_commit at the same time. Does this explain things?

Honza
--
Jan Kara <jack@suse.com>
SUSE Labs, CR