From: Ye Liu <ye.liu@linux.dev>
To: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
Uladzislau Rezki <urezki@gmail.com>
Cc: Ye Liu <liuye@kylinos.cn>, Dev Jain <dev.jain@arm.com>,
linux-mm@kvack.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH v2] mm: vmalloc: fix vmap_purge_lock livelock under memory pressure
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 2026 17:17:53 +0800 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260828091753.299295-1-ye.liu@linux.dev> (raw)
From: Ye Liu <liuye@kylinos.cn>
The vmap_purge_lock mutex can be held for an extended period by
__purge_vmap_area_lazy() which calls flush_work() to wait for
purge_vmap_node workers while holding the lock. Under memory
pressure, those workers may themselves be blocked in direct
reclaim trying to acquire the same lock via the
vmap_node_shrink_scan() shrinker callback, creating a circular
dependency that deadlocks the entire system.
Two places acquire vmap_purge_lock from paths that can be reached
during direct reclaim:
1. vmap_node_shrink_scan(): replace blocking guard(mutex) with
mutex_trylock(). This is a shrinker that only decays the vmap
pool and returns SHRINK_STOP without freeing memory; skipping a
decay cycle when the lock is contended is harmless and prevents
tasks from piling up on the mutex in the direct reclaim path.
2. reclaim_and_purge_vmap_areas(): replace mutex_lock() with
mutex_trylock(). This is called from the vmalloc allocation
overflow path; if trylock fails, another thread is already
purging and the allocator's retry will find freed space. The
notifier chain provides a fallback if the retry still fails.
Both trylock failures break the circular dependency: the lock
holder's flush_work() can complete because workers are no longer
blocked on vmap_purge_lock in the direct reclaim path.
Fixes: 7679ba6b36db ("mm: vmalloc: add a shrinker to drain vmap pools")
Suggested-by: Uladzislau Rezki <urezki@gmail.com>
Suggested-by: Dev Jain <dev.jain@arm.com>
Signed-off-by: Ye Liu <liuye@kylinos.cn>
---
v2:
- Use mutex_trylock instead of mutex_lock to acquire vmap_purge_lock,
as suggested by Uladzislau Rezki and Dev Jain.
- Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20260824095020.1225189-1-ye.liu@linux.dev/
mm/vmalloc.c | 15 +++++++++++++--
1 file changed, 13 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
diff --git a/mm/vmalloc.c b/mm/vmalloc.c
index bea9f76ed7e7..e5c68b795a3e 100644
--- a/mm/vmalloc.c
+++ b/mm/vmalloc.c
@@ -2440,7 +2440,8 @@ static bool __purge_vmap_area_lazy(unsigned long start, unsigned long end,
static void reclaim_and_purge_vmap_areas(void)
{
- mutex_lock(&vmap_purge_lock);
+ if (!mutex_trylock(&vmap_purge_lock))
+ return;
purge_fragmented_blocks_allcpus();
__purge_vmap_area_lazy(ULONG_MAX, 0, true);
mutex_unlock(&vmap_purge_lock);
@@ -5519,10 +5520,20 @@ vmap_node_shrink_scan(struct shrinker *shrink, struct shrink_control *sc)
{
struct vmap_node *vn;
- guard(mutex)(&vmap_purge_lock);
+ /*
+ * This shrinker is invoked from direct reclaim where memory
+ * pressure is already high. Blocking on vmap_purge_lock here
+ * can deadlock the system: the lock holder may be blocked in
+ * flush_work() waiting for a worker that is stuck in this same
+ * reclaim path trying to acquire the same lock. Use trylock
+ * to avoid this; skipping a pool decay cycle is harmless.
+ */
+ if (!mutex_trylock(&vmap_purge_lock))
+ return SHRINK_STOP;
for_each_vmap_node(vn)
decay_va_pool_node(vn, true);
+ mutex_unlock(&vmap_purge_lock);
return SHRINK_STOP;
}
--
2.25.1
next reply other threads:[~2026-08-28 9:18 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 3+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-08-28 9:17 Ye Liu [this message]
2026-08-28 16:54 ` Uladzislau Rezki
2026-08-28 18:05 ` Andrew Morton
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