[BUG] random kernel crashes after THP rework on s390 (maybe also on PowerPC and ARM)

[Gerald Schaefer]

On Fri, 12 Feb 2016 09:34:33 +0530
"Aneesh Kumar K.V" <aneesh.kumar at linux.vnet.ibm.com> wrote:

> Gerald Schaefer <gerald.schaefer at de.ibm.com> writes:
> 
> > On Thu, 11 Feb 2016 21:09:42 +0200
> > "Kirill A. Shutemov" <kirill at shutemov.name> wrote:
> >
> >> On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 07:22:23PM +0100, Gerald Schaefer wrote:
> >> > Hi,
> >> > 
> >> > Sebastian Ott reported random kernel crashes beginning with v4.5-rc1 and
> >> > he also bisected this to commit 61f5d698 "mm: re-enable THP". Further
> >> > review of the THP rework patches, which cannot be bisected, revealed
> >> > commit fecffad "s390, thp: remove infrastructure for handling splitting PMDs"
> >> > (and also similar commits for other archs).
> >> > 
> >> > This commit removes the THP splitting bit and also the architecture
> >> > implementation of pmdp_splitting_flush(), which took care of the IPI for
> >> > fast_gup serialization. The commit message says
> >> > 
> >> >     pmdp_splitting_flush() is not needed too: on splitting PMD we will do
> >> >     pmdp_clear_flush() + set_pte_at().  pmdp_clear_flush() will do IPI as
> >> >     needed for fast_gup
> >> > 
> >> > The assumption that a TLB flush will also produce an IPI is wrong on s390,
> >> > and maybe also on other architectures, and I thought that this was actually
> >> > the main reason for having an arch-specific pmdp_splitting_flush().
> >> > 
> >> > At least PowerPC and ARM also had an individual implementation of
> >> > pmdp_splitting_flush() that used kick_all_cpus_sync() instead of a TLB
> >> > flush to send the IPI, and those were also removed. Putting the arch
> >> > maintainers and mailing lists on cc to verify.
> >> > 
> >> > On s390 this will break the IPI serialization against fast_gup, which
> >> > would certainly explain the random kernel crashes, please revert or fix
> >> > the pmdp_splitting_flush() removal.
> >> 
> >> Sorry for that.
> >> 
> >> I believe, the problem was already addressed for PowerPC:
> >> 
> >> http://lkml.kernel.org/g/454980831-16631-1-git-send-email-aneesh.kumar@linux.vnet.ibm.com
> >> 
> >> I think kick_all_cpus_sync() in arch-specific pmdp_invalidate() would do
> >> the trick, right?
> >
> > Hmm, not sure about that. After pmdp_invalidate(), a pmd_none() check in
> > fast_gup will still return false, because the pmd is not empty (at least
> > on s390).
> 
> Why can't we do this ? I did this for ppc64.
> 
>  void pmdp_invalidate(struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned long address,
>  		     pmd_t *pmdp)
>  {
> -	pmd_hugepage_update(vma->vm_mm, address, pmdp, _PAGE_PRESENT, 0);
> +	pmd_hugepage_update(vma->vm_mm, address, pmdp, ~0UL, 0);
> 

Wouldn't that semantically change what pmdp_invalidate() was supposed to
do? The comment before the call says "the pmd_trans_huge and
pmd_trans_splitting must remain set at all times on the pmd". So, after
removing pmd_trans_splitting, it seems to be necessary to at least keep
pmd_trans_huge set.

In your case, the pmd would be completely cleared, which may help to find
it in fast_gup with pmd_none(), but I'm not sure if this would open up
other problems, e.g. with concurrent page faults. But I must also admit that
my THP overview got a little rusty.

> >So I don't see spontaneously how it will help fast_gup to break
> > out to the slow path in case of THP splitting.
> >
> >> 
> >> If yes, I'll prepare patch tomorrow (some sleep required).
> >> 
> >
> > We'll check if adding kick_all_cpus_sync() to pmdp_invalidate() helps.
> > It would also be good if Martin has a look at this, he'll return on
> > Monday.
> 
> -aneesh
> 
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