Re: [PATCH v2] mm: optimize the redundant loop of mm_update_next_owner()

Oleg Nesterov
2024-06-20T17:32:03Z

Can't review, I forgot everything about mm_update_next_owner().
So I am sorry for the noise I am going to add, feel free to ignore.
Just in case, I see nothing wrong in this patch.

On 06/20, alexjlzheng@gmail.com wrote:
>
> When mm_update_next_owner() is racing with swapoff (try_to_unuse()) or /proc or
> ptrace or page migration (get_task_mm()), it is impossible to find an
> appropriate task_struct in the loop whose mm_struct is the same as the target
> mm_struct.
>
> If the above race condition is combined with the stress-ng-zombie and
> stress-ng-dup tests, such a long loop can easily cause a Hard Lockup in
> write_lock_irq() for tasklist_lock.
>
> Recognize this situation in advance and exit early.

But this patch won't help if (say) ptrace_access_vm() sleeps while
for_each_process() tries to find another owner, right?

> @@ -484,6 +484,8 @@ void mm_update_next_owner(struct mm_struct *mm)
> * Search through everything else, we should not get here often.
> */
> for_each_process(g) {
> + if (atomic_read(&mm->mm_users) <= 1)
> + break;

I think this deserves a comment to explain that this is optimization
for the case we race with the pending mmput(). mm_update_next_owner()
checks mm_users at the start.

And. Can we drop tasklist and use rcu_read_lock() before for_each_process?
Yes, this will probably need more changes even if possible...

Or even better. Can't we finally kill mm_update_next_owner() and turn the
ugly mm->owner into mm->mem_cgroup ?

Michal, Eric, iirc you had the patch(es) which do this?

Oleg.