tree 4c5b589455ed0d343384d7eeaedfab5057648a0d
parent 9f78ff005a6b6313728247113948450b2adddde8
author Hugh Dickins <hughd@google.com> 1330988358 -0800
committer Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> 1330991383 -0800

memcg: fix GPF when cgroup removal races with last exit

When moving tasks from old memcg (with move_charge_at_immigrate on new
memcg), followed by removal of old memcg, hit General Protection Fault in
mem_cgroup_lru_del_list() (called from release_pages called from
free_pages_and_swap_cache from tlb_flush_mmu from tlb_finish_mmu from
exit_mmap from mmput from exit_mm from do_exit).

Somewhat reproducible, takes a few hours: the old struct mem_cgroup has
been freed and poisoned by SLAB_DEBUG, but mem_cgroup_lru_del_list() is
still trying to update its stats, and take page off lru before freeing.

A task, or a charge, or a page on lru: each secures a memcg against
removal.  In this case, the last task has been moved out of the old memcg,
and it is exiting: anonymous pages are uncharged one by one from the
memcg, as they are zapped from its pagetables, so the charge gets down to
0; but the pages themselves are queued in an mmu_gather for freeing.

Most of those pages will be on lru (and force_empty is careful to
lru_add_drain_all, to add pages from pagevec to lru first), but not
necessarily all: perhaps some have been isolated for page reclaim, perhaps
some isolated for other reasons.  So, force_empty may find no task, no
charge and no page on lru, and let the removal proceed.

There would still be no problem if these pages were immediately freed; but
typically (and the put_page_testzero protocol demands it) they have to be
added back to lru before they are found freeable, then removed from lru
and freed.  We don't see the issue when adding, because the
mem_cgroup_iter() loops keep their own reference to the memcg being
scanned; but when it comes to mem_cgroup_lru_del_list().

I believe this was not an issue in v3.2: there, PageCgroupAcctLRU and
PageCgroupUsed flags were used (like a trick with mirrors) to deflect view
of pc->mem_cgroup to the stable root_mem_cgroup when neither set.
38c5d72f3ebe ("memcg: simplify LRU handling by new rule") mercifully
removed those convolutions, but left this General Protection Fault.

But it's surprisingly easy to restore the old behaviour: just check
PageCgroupUsed in mem_cgroup_lru_add_list() (which decides on which lruvec
to add), and reset pc to root_mem_cgroup if page is uncharged.  A risky
change?  just going back to how it worked before; testing, and an audit of
uses of pc->mem_cgroup, show no problem.

And there's a nice bonus: with mem_cgroup_lru_add_list() itself making
sure that an uncharged page goes to root lru, mem_cgroup_reset_owner() no
longer has any purpose, and we can safely revert 4e5f01c2b9b9 ("memcg:
clear pc->mem_cgroup if necessary").

Calling update_page_reclaim_stat() after add_page_to_lru_list() in swap.c
is not strictly necessary: the lru_lock there, with RCU before memcg
structures are freed, makes mem_cgroup_get_reclaim_stat_from_page safe
without that; but it seems cleaner to rely on one dependency less.

Signed-off-by: Hugh Dickins <hughd@google.com>
Cc: KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@jp.fujitsu.com>
Cc: Johannes Weiner <hannes@cmpxchg.org>
Cc: Konstantin Khlebnikov <khlebnikov@openvz.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>