Re: mm, vmscan: commit makes PAE kernel crash nightly (bisected)

[Trevor Cordes <trevor@tecnopolis.ca>]

On 2017-01-16 Mel Gorman wrote:
> > > You can easily check whether this is memcg related by trying to
> > > run the same workload with cgroup_disable=memory kernel command
> > > line parameter. This will put all the memcg specifics out of the
> > > way.  
> > 
> > I will try booting now into cgroup_disable=memory to see if that
> > helps at all.  I'll reply back in 48 hours, or when it oom's,
> > whichever comes first.
> >   
> 
> Thanks.

It has successfully survived 70 hours and 2 3am cycles (when it
normally oom's) with your first patch *and* cgroup_disable=memory
grafted on Fedora's 4.8.13.  Since it has never survived 2 3am cycles,
I strongly suspect the cgroup_disable=memory mitigates my bug.

> > Also, should I bother trying the latest git HEAD to see if that
> > solves anything?  Thanks!  
> 
> That's worth trying. If that also fails then could you try the
> following hack to encourage direct reclaim to reclaim slab when
> buffers are over the limit please?
> 
> diff --git a/mm/vmscan.c b/mm/vmscan.c
> index 532a2a750952..46aac487b89a 100644
> --- a/mm/vmscan.c
> +++ b/mm/vmscan.c
> @@ -2684,6 +2684,7 @@ static void shrink_zones(struct zonelist
> *zonelist, struct scan_control *sc) continue;
>  
>  			if (sc->priority != DEF_PRIORITY &&
> +			    !buffer_heads_over_limit &&
>  			    !pgdat_reclaimable(zone->zone_pgdat))
>  				continue;	/* Let kswapd poll
> it */ 

What's the next best step?  HEAD?  HEAD + the above patch?  A new
patch?  I'll start a HEAD compile until I hear more.  I assume I should
test without cgroup_disable=memory as that's just a kludge/workaround,
right?

Also, is there a way to spot the slab pressure you are talking about
before oom's occur?  slabinfo?  I suppose I'd be able to see some
counter slowly getting too high or low?  Thanks!