From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.0 (2014-02-07) on aws-us-west-2-korg-lkml-1.web.codeaurora.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.6 required=3.0 tests=DKIMWL_WL_HIGH,DKIM_SIGNED, DKIM_VALID,DKIM_VALID_AU,MAILING_LIST_MULTI,SPF_PASS,URIBL_BLOCKED, USER_AGENT_MUTT autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.0 Received: from mail.kernel.org (mail.kernel.org [198.145.29.99]) by smtp.lore.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id ABDE7C43381 for ; Mon, 1 Apr 2019 20:12:06 +0000 (UTC) Received: from vger.kernel.org (vger.kernel.org [209.132.180.67]) by mail.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7211F208E4 for ; Mon, 1 Apr 2019 20:12:06 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=kernel.org; s=default; t=1554149526; bh=5cp2rqhvstk1dXsMWA6uo5RKnZDhcKc3VGgJZWgpQEg=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:References:In-Reply-To:List-ID:From; b=Rd0vXDd9nSq3UXyoojDAd/AJLUG0IFFgbs7MMmXxH9+NCpWo+APsJeLASO/jg3G4g DBAS6NR8Hjl3rUopFjXkfW34CsAADK+6vpnP21WHZCnE/QmIXlULxj+/K3JFZmbZtX FQmpgj7KinMiKI9TCeOXRjwApOmC6tAi2Dcxgcz0= Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1726772AbfDAUMF (ORCPT ); Mon, 1 Apr 2019 16:12:05 -0400 Received: from mx2.suse.de ([195.135.220.15]:56458 "EHLO mx1.suse.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-FAIL) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1725895AbfDAUME (ORCPT ); Mon, 1 Apr 2019 16:12:04 -0400 X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new at test-mx.suse.de Received: from relay2.suse.de (unknown [195.135.220.254]) by mx1.suse.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id 615C3AC7E; Mon, 1 Apr 2019 20:12:03 +0000 (UTC) Date: Mon, 1 Apr 2019 22:12:01 +0200 From: Michal Hocko To: Catalin Marinas Cc: Matthew Wilcox , Qian Cai , akpm@linux-foundation.org, cl@linux.com, penberg@kernel.org, rientjes@google.com, iamjoonsoo.kim@lge.com, linux-mm@kvack.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [PATCH v4] kmemleak: survive in a low-memory situation Message-ID: <20190401201201.GJ28293@dhcp22.suse.cz> References: <20190327005948.24263-1-cai@lca.pw> <20190327084432.GA11927@dhcp22.suse.cz> <20190327172955.GB17247@arrakis.emea.arm.com> <20190327182158.GS10344@bombadil.infradead.org> <20190328145917.GC10283@arrakis.emea.arm.com> <20190329120237.GB17624@dhcp22.suse.cz> <20190329161637.GC48010@arrakis.emea.arm.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20190329161637.GC48010@arrakis.emea.arm.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.10.1 (2018-07-13) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Fri 29-03-19 16:16:38, Catalin Marinas wrote: > On Fri, Mar 29, 2019 at 01:02:37PM +0100, Michal Hocko wrote: > > On Thu 28-03-19 14:59:17, Catalin Marinas wrote: > > [...] > > > >From 09eba8f0235eb16409931e6aad77a45a12bedc82 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 > > > From: Catalin Marinas > > > Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2019 13:26:07 +0000 > > > Subject: [PATCH] mm: kmemleak: Use mempool allocations for kmemleak objects > > > > > > This patch adds mempool allocations for struct kmemleak_object and > > > kmemleak_scan_area as slightly more resilient than kmem_cache_alloc() > > > under memory pressure. The patch also masks out all the gfp flags passed > > > to kmemleak other than GFP_KERNEL|GFP_ATOMIC. > > > > Using mempool allocator is better than inventing its own implementation > > but there is one thing to be slightly careful/worried about. > > > > This allocator expects that somebody will refill the pool in a finit > > time. Most users are OK with that because objects in flight are going > > to return in the pool in a relatively short time (think of an IO) but > > kmemleak is not guaranteed to comply with that AFAIU. Sure ephemeral > > allocations are happening all the time so there should be some churn > > in the pool all the time but if we go to an extreme where there is a > > serious memory leak then I suspect we might get stuck here without any > > way forward. Page/slab allocator would eventually back off even though > > small allocations never fail because a user context would get killed > > sooner or later but there is no fatal_signal_pending backoff in the > > mempool alloc path. > > We could improve the mempool code slightly to refill itself (from some > workqueue or during a mempool_alloc() which allows blocking) but it's > really just a best effort for a debug tool under OOM conditions. It may > be sufficient just to make the mempool size tunable (via > /sys/kernel/debug/kmemleak). The point I've tried to make is that you really have to fail at some point but mempool is fundamentally about non-failing as long as the allocation is sleepable. And we cannot really break that assumptions because existing users really depend on it. But as I've said I would try it out and see. This is just a debugging feature and I assume that a really fatal oom caused by a real memory leak would be detected sooner than the whole thing just blows up. -- Michal Hocko SUSE Labs