Re: [PATCH 4/4] sched/fair: Rework/fix task_h_load()

[Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>]

On Wed, Sep 02, 2026 at 09:55:49AM +0200, Vincent Guittot wrote:
> On Wed, 2 Sept 2026 at 07:39, Chen Yu <yu.c.chen@intel.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Fri, Aug 28, 2026 at 09:41:03AM +0200, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> >
> > [ ... ]
> >
> > > @@ -15230,6 +15255,9 @@ static void set_next_task_fair(struct rq
> > >                       weight = __calc_prop_weight(cfs_rq, se, weight);
> > >       }
> > >
> > > +     for_each_sched_entity_bl(se, cfs_rq)
> > > +             update_cfs_rq_h_load(group_cfs_rq(se), se, cfs_rq);
> > > +
> >
> > It panics during bootup on a 192 Cores system,
> > [    9.445362][ T1687] Oops: general protection fault, kernel NULL pointer dereference 0x69: 0000 [#1] SMP NOPTI
> > [   18.987940][ T1687] CPU: 58 UID: 0 PID: 1687 Comm: systemd-udevd Not tainted 7.3.0-rc1-flat-hload+ #9 PREEMPTLAZY
> > [   19.022374][ T1687] RIP: 0010:pick_task_fair+0x43/0xd0
> > [   19.175316][ T1687]  <TASK>
> > [   19.181239][ T1687]  __pick_next_task+0x49/0x1b0
> > [   19.189229][ T1687]  __schedule+0x14b/0x6b0
> > [   19.196711][ T1687]  preempt_schedule+0x3a/0x60
> > [   19.204543][ T1687]  preempt_schedule_thunk+0x16/0x40
> > [   19.212931][ T1687]  _raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore+0x2b/0x30
> > [   19.221833][ T1687]  autogroup_move_group+0xc5/0x160
> > [   19.230124][ T1687]  sched_autogroup_create_attach+0xa7/0x180
> > [   19.239280][ T1687]  ksys_setsid+0x12c/0x170
> > [   19.246753][ T1687]  __do_sys_setsid+0xe/0x20
> > [   19.254292][ T1687]  do_syscall_64+0xbc/0x470
> > [   19.307858][ T1687]  entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e
> > [   19.316405][ T1687] RIP: 0033:0x7f347bfbcb9b
> >
> > It seems that the crash is a read of se->sched_delayed on a NULL se inside
> > pick_next_entity(), so pick_eevdf() return NULL
> 
> I faced the same crash while testing

Weirdly that crash didn't show up for me :-(, I had a few others that I
cured.

> >
> > After the following top->down backlink traverse,
> > for_each_sched_entity_bl(se, cfs_rq)
> >     update_cfs_rq_h_load(group_cfs_rq(se), se, cfs_rq);
> >
> > cfs_rq is not the root->cfs_rq anymore, but a middle cfs_rq(autogroup
> > in above example). Meanwhile rq->cfs.curr remains NULL because the
> > rq->cfs.curr has been dequeued if the task is runnable and queued:
> > if (on_rq)
> >         __dequeue_entity(cfs_rq, se)
> >
> > se = &p->se;
> > cfs_rq->curr = se; /*wrong cfs_rq*/
> >
> > Then later _raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore triggers the scheduling
> > it picks from rq->cfs_rq.curr with a NULL tree.
> >
> > Maybe we need to restore the rq->cfs_rq after the
> > for_each_sched_entity_bl()?
> > se = &p->se;
> > cfs_rq = &rq->cfs; <--
> 
> Yes, this fixes it for me too

So I had this issue in task_tick_fair(), where
for_each_sched_entity_bl() clobbered cfs_rq, and fixed that by moving
things after reweight_eevdf() (which is what uses cfs_rq).

I at point I did actually look to see if anybody else would suffer that
same problem, but clearly I missed one.

I'm thinking the problem here is set_next_task_fair() ? I think I
misread the:

	se = &p->se;
	cfs_rq->curr = se;

to reset both se and cfs_rq, but clearly it doesn't. The below should
fix I suppose. Let me go and try and reproduce.


---
--- a/kernel/sched/fair.c
+++ b/kernel/sched/fair.c
@@ -15287,9 +15287,6 @@ static void set_next_task_fair(struct rq
 			weight = __calc_prop_weight(cfs_rq, se, weight);
 	}
 
-	for_each_sched_entity_bl(se, cfs_rq)
-		update_cfs_rq_h_load(group_cfs_rq(se), se, cfs_rq);
-
 	if (throttled)
 		task_throttle_setup_work(p);
 
@@ -15302,6 +15299,9 @@ static void set_next_task_fair(struct rq
 			set_protect_slice(cfs_rq, se);
 	}
 
+	for_each_sched_entity_bl(se, cfs_rq)
+		update_cfs_rq_h_load(group_cfs_rq(se), se, cfs_rq);
+
 	if (task_on_rq_queued(p)) {
 		/*
 		 * Move the next running task to the front of the list, so our