Re: [PATCH 0/2] fsnotify: fix softlockups iterating over d_subdirs

Amir Goldstein
2022-10-19T05:33:54Z

On Wed, Oct 19, 2022 at 2:52 AM Stephen Brennan
<stephen.s.brennan@oracle.com> wrote:
>
> Amir Goldstein <amir73il@gmail.com> writes:
> > On Tue, Oct 18, 2022 at 7:12 AM Stephen Brennan
> > <stephen.s.brennan@oracle.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi Jan, Amir, Al,
> >>
> >> Here's my first shot at implementing what we discussed. I tested it using the
> >> negative dentry creation tool I mentioned in my previous message, with a similar
> >> workflow. Rather than having a bunch of threads accessing the directory to
> >> create that "thundering herd" of CPUs in __fsnotify_update_child_dentry_flags, I
> >> just started a lot of inotifywait tasks:
> >>
> >> 1. Create 100 million negative dentries in a dir
> >> 2. Use trace-cmd to watch __fsnotify_update_child_dentry_flags:
> >> trace-cmd start -p function_graph -l __fsnotify_update_child_dentry_flags
> >> sudo cat /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/trace_pipe
> >> 3. Run a lot of inotifywait tasks: for i in {1..10} inotifywait $dir & done
> >>
> >> With step #3, I see only one execution of __fsnotify_update_child_dentry_flags.
> >> Once that completes, all the inotifywait tasks say "Watches established".
> >> Similarly, once an access occurs in the directory, a single
> >> __fsnotify_update_child_dentry_flags execution occurs, and all the tasks exit.
> >> In short: it works great!
> >>
> >> However, while testing this, I've observed a dentry still in use warning during
> >> unmount of rpc_pipefs on the "nfs" dentry during shutdown. NFS is of course in
> >> use, and I assume that fsnotify must have been used to trigger this. The error
> >> is not there on mainline without my patch so it's definitely caused by this
> >> code. I'll continue debugging it but I wanted to share my first take on this so
> >> you could take a look.
> >>
> >> [ 1595.197339] BUG: Dentry 000000005f5e7197{i=67,n=nfs} still in use (2) [unmount of rpc_pipefs rpc_pipefs]
> >>
> >
> > Hmm, the assumption we made about partial stability of d_subdirs
> > under dir inode lock looks incorrect for rpc_pipefs.
> > None of the functions that update the rpc_pipefs dcache take the parent
> > inode lock.
>
> That may be, but I'm confused how that would trigger this issue. If I'm
> understanding correctly, this warning indicates a reference counting
> bug.

Yes.
On generic_shutdown_super() there should be no more
references to dentries.

>
> If __fsnotify_update_child_dentry_flags() had gone to sleep and the list
> were edited, then it seems like there could be only two possibilities
> that could cause bugs:
>
> 1. The dentry we slept holding a reference to was removed from the list,
> and maybe moved to a different one, or just removed. If that were the
> case, we're quite unlucky, because we'll start looping indefinitely as
> we'll never get back to the beginning of the list, or worse.
>
> 2. A dentry adjacent to the one we held a reference to was removed. In
> that case, our dentry's d_child pointers should get rearranged, and when
> we wake, we should see those updates and continue.
>
> In neither of those cases do I understand where we could have done a
> dget() unpaired with a dput(), which is what seemingly would trigger
> this issue.
>

I got the same impression.

> I'm probably wrong, but without understanding the mechanism behind the
> error, I'm not sure how to approach it.
>
> > The assumption looks incorrect for other pseudo fs as well.
> >
> > The other side of the coin is that we do not really need to worry
> > about walking a huge list of pseudo fs children.
> >
> > The question is how to classify those pseudo fs and whether there
> > are other cases like this that we missed.
> >
> > Perhaps having simple_dentry_operationsis a good enough
> > clue, but perhaps it is not enough. I am not sure.
> >
> > It covers all the cases of pseudo fs that I know about, so you
> > can certainly use this clue to avoid going to sleep in the
> > update loop as a first approximation.
>
> I would worry that it would become an exercise of whack-a-mole.
> Allow/deny-listing certain filesystems for certain behavior seems scary.
>

Totally agree.

> > I can try to figure this out, but I prefer that Al will chime in to
> > provide reliable answers to those questions.
>
> I have a core dump from the warning (with panic_on_warn=1) and will see
> if I can trace or otherwise identify the exact mechanism myself.
>

Most likely the refcount was already leaked earlier, but
worth trying.

>
> Thanks for your detailed review of both the patches. I didn't get much
> time today to update the patches and test them. Your feedback looks very
> helpful though, and I'll hope to send out an updated revision tomorrow.
>
> In the absolute worst case (and I don't want to concede defeat just
> yet), keeping patch 1 without patch 2 (sleepable iteration) would still
> be a major win, since it resolves the thundering herd problem which is
> what compounds problem of the long lists.
>

Makes sense.
Patch 1 logic is solid.

Hope my suggestions won't complicate you too much,
if they do, I am sure Jan will find a way to simplify ;)

Thanks,
Amir.