On Thu, 17 Mar 2022 03:28:57 -0400 Jianxing Wang <wangjianxing@loongson.cn> wrote:

free a large list of pages maybe cause rcu_sched starved on
non-preemptible kernels. howerver free_unref_page_list maybe can't
cond_resched as it maybe called in interrupt or atomic context,
especially can't detect atomic context in CONFIG_PREEMPTION=n.

tlb flush batch count depends on PAGE_SIZE, it's too large if
PAGE_SIZE > 4K, here limit free batch count with 512.
And add schedule point in tlb_batch_pages_flush.

rcu: rcu_sched kthread starved for 5359 jiffies! g454793 f0x0
RCU_GP_WAIT_FQS(5) ->state=0x0 ->cpu=19
[...]
Call Trace:
   free_unref_page_list+0x19c/0x270
   release_pages+0x3cc/0x498
   tlb_flush_mmu_free+0x44/0x70
   zap_pte_range+0x450/0x738
   unmap_page_range+0x108/0x240
   unmap_vmas+0x74/0xf0
   unmap_region+0xb0/0x120
   do_munmap+0x264/0x438
   vm_munmap+0x58/0xa0
   sys_munmap+0x10/0x20
   syscall_common+0x24/0x38

tlb_batch_pages_flush() doesn't appear in this trace.  I assume the call
sequence is

zap_pte_range
->tlb_flush_mmu
  ->tlb_flush_mmu_free

correct?

--- a/mm/mmu_gather.c
+++ b/mm/mmu_gather.c
@@ -47,8 +47,20 @@ static void tlb_batch_pages_flush(struct mmu_gather *tlb)
 	struct mmu_gather_batch *batch;
 
 	for (batch = &tlb->local; batch && batch->nr; batch = batch->next) {
-		free_pages_and_swap_cache(batch->pages, batch->nr);
-		batch->nr = 0;
+		struct page **pages = batch->pages;
+
+		do {
+			/*
+			 * limit free batch count when PAGE_SIZE > 4K
+			 */
+			unsigned int nr = min(512U, batch->nr);
+
+			free_pages_and_swap_cache(pages, nr);
+			pages += nr;
+			batch->nr -= nr;
+
+			cond_resched();
+		} while (batch->nr);
 	}

The patch looks safe enough.  But again, it's unlikely to work if the
calling task has realtime policy.  The same can be said of the
cond_resched() in zap_pte_range(), and presumably many others.

I'll save this away for now and will revisit after 5.18-rc1.

How serious is this problem?  Under precisely what circumstances were
you able to trigger this?  In other words, do you believe that a
backport into -stable kernels is needed and if so, why?

Thanks.