Re: [PATCH 1/6] kmod: add dynamic max concurrent thread count

Dmitry Torokhov
2017-05-19T21:58:35Z

On Fri, May 19, 2017 at 02:45:29PM -0700, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> On May 19, 2017 1:45 PM, "Dmitry Torokhov" <dmitry.torokhov@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 08:24:39PM -0700, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> > We currently statically limit the number of modprobe threads which
> > we allow to run concurrently to 50. As per Keith Owens, this was a
> > completely arbitrary value, and it was set in the 2.3.38 days [0]
> > over 16 years ago in year 2000.
> >
> > Although we haven't yet hit our lower limits, experimentation [1]
> > shows that when and if we hit this limit in the worst case, will be
> > fatal -- consider get_fs_type() failures upon mount on a system which
> > has many partitions, some of which might even be with the same
> > filesystem. Its best to be prudent and increase and set this
> > value to something more sensible which ensures we're far from hitting
> > the limit and also allows default build/user run time override.
> >
> > The worst case is fatal given that once a module fails to load there
> > is a period of time during which subsequent request for the same module
> > will fail, so in the case of partitions its not just one request that
> > could fail, but whole series of partitions. This later issue of a
> > module request failure domino effect can be addressed later, but
> > increasing the limit to something more meaninful should at least give us
> > enough cushion to avoid this for a while.
> >
> > Set this value up with a bit more meaninful modern limits:
> >
> > Bump this up to 64 max for small systems (CONFIG_BASE_SMALL)
> > Bump this up to 128 max for larger systems (!CONFIG_BASE_SMALL)
> >
> > Also allow the default max limit to be further fine tuned at compile
> > time and at initialization at run time at boot up using the kernel
> > parameter: max_modprobes.
> >
> > [0] https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/history/
> history.git/commit/?id=ab1c4ec7410f6ec64e1511d1a7d850fc99c09b44
> > [1] https://github.com/mcgrof/test_request_module
>
> If we actually run into this issue, instead of slamming the system with
> bazillion concurrent requests, can we wait for the other modprobes to
> finish and then continue?
>
>
> Yes ! That I have a patch that does precisely that ! That is actually still
> *not enough* to not fail fatally but this would be subject of another
> series with more debatable approaches.
>

Then please post it.

> This at least pushes us to closer safer limits for now while also making it
> configurable.

Making it configurable depending on how big/little box is makes no
sense, especially if the above is implemented, as depth of modprobe
invocations depends on configuration and not computing power of the
hardware the system is running on.

Thanks.

--
Dmitry