Re: [PATCH AUTOSEL 3.18 8/9] mm/vmstat.c: assert that vmstat_text is in sync with stat_items_size

[Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>]

On Thu, Nov 15, 2018 at 02:47:19PM -0800, Andrew Morton wrote:
>On Thu, 15 Nov 2018 17:37:18 -0500 Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Nov 15, 2018 at 02:08:10PM -0800, Andrew Morton wrote:
>> >On Tue, 13 Nov 2018 00:52:51 -0500 Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org> wrote:
>> >
>> >> From: Jann Horn <jannh@google.com>
>> >>
>> >> [ Upstream commit f0ecf25a093fc0589f0a6bc4c1ea068bbb67d220 ]
>> >>
>> >> Having two gigantic arrays that must manually be kept in sync, including
>> >> ifdefs, isn't exactly robust.  To make it easier to catch such issues in
>> >> the future, add a BUILD_BUG_ON().
>> >>
>> >> ...
>> >>
>> >> --- a/mm/vmstat.c
>> >> +++ b/mm/vmstat.c
>> >> @@ -1189,6 +1189,8 @@ static void *vmstat_start(struct seq_file *m, loff_t *pos)
>> >>  	stat_items_size += sizeof(struct vm_event_state);
>> >>  #endif
>> >>
>> >> +	BUILD_BUG_ON(stat_items_size !=
>> >> +		     ARRAY_SIZE(vmstat_text) * sizeof(unsigned long));
>> >>  	v = kmalloc(stat_items_size, GFP_KERNEL);
>> >>  	m->private = v;
>> >>  	if (!v)
>> >
>> >I don't think there's any way in which this can make a -stable kernel
>> >more stable!
>> >
>> >
>> >Generally, I consider -stable in every patch I merge, so for each patch
>> >which doesn't have cc:stable, that tag is missing for a reason.
>> >
>> >In other words, your criteria for -stable addition are different from
>> >mine.
>> >
>> >And I think your criteria differ from those described in
>> >Documentation/process/stable-kernel-rules.rst.
>> >
>> >So... what is your overall thinking on patch selection?
>>
>> Indeed, this doesn't fix anything.
>>
>> My concern is that in the future, we will pull a patch that will cause
>> the issue described here, and that issue will only be relevant on
>> stable. It is very hard to debug this, and I suspect that stable kernels
>> will still pass all their tests with flying colors.
>>
>> As an example, consider the case where commit 28e2c4bb99aa ("mm/vmstat.c:
>> fix outdated vmstat_text") is backported to a kernel that doesn't have
>> commit 7a9cdebdcc17 ("mm: get rid of vmacache_flush_all() entirely").
>>
>> I also felt safe with this patch since it adds a single BUILD_BUG_ON()
>> which does nothing during runtime, so the chances it introduces anything
>> beyond a build regression seemed to be slim to none.
>
>Well OK.  But my question was general and covers basically every
>autosel patch which originated in -mm.

Sure. I picked 3 patches that show up on top when I google for AUTOSEL
in linux-mm, maybe they'll be a good example to help me understand why
they were not selected.

This one fixes a case where too few struct pages are allocated when
using mirrorred memory:

	https://marc.info/?l=linux-mm&m=154211933211147&w=2

Race condition with memory hotplug due to missing locks:

	https://marc.info/?l=linux-mm&m=154211934011188&w=2

Raising an OOM event that causes issues in userspace when no OOM has
actually occured:

	https://marc.info/?l=linux-mm&m=154211939811582&w=2


I think that all 3 cases represent a "real" bug users can hit, and I
honestly don't know why they were not tagged for stable.

--
Thanks,
Sasha