Re: [PATCH resend] mm, memcg: reset memcg's memory.{min, low} for reclaiming itself

[Michal Hocko <mhocko@kernel.org>]

On Sun 16-02-20 09:52:49, Yafang Shao wrote:
> memory.{emin, elow} are set in mem_cgroup_protected(), and the values of
> them won't be changed until next recalculation in this function. After
> either or both of them are set, the next reclaimer to relcaim this memcg
> may be a different reclaimer, e.g. this memcg is also the root memcg of
> the new reclaimer, and then in mem_cgroup_protection() in get_scan_count()
> the old values of them will be used to calculate scan count, that is not
> proper. We should reset them to zero in this case.
> 
> Here's an example of this issue.
> 
>     root_mem_cgroup
>          /
>         A   memory.max=1024M memory.min=512M memory.current=800M
> 
> Once kswapd is waked up, it will try to scan all MEMCGs, including
> this A, and it will assign memory.emin of A with 512M.
> After that, A may reach its hard limit(memory.max), and then it will
> do memcg reclaim. Because A is the root of this reclaimer, so it will
> not calculate its memory.emin. So the memory.emin is the old value
> 512M, and then this old value will be used in
> mem_cgroup_protection() in get_scan_count() to get the scan count.
> That is not proper.

Please document user visible effects of this patch. What does it mean
that this is not proper behavior? What happens if we have concurrent
reclaimers at different levels of the hierarchy how that would affect
the resulting protection?

> Fixes: 9783aa9917f8 ("mm, memcg: proportional memory.{low,min} reclaim")
> Signed-off-by: Yafang Shao <laoar.shao@gmail.com>
> Acked-by: Roman Gushchin <guro@fb.com>
> Cc: Chris Down <chris@chrisdown.name>
> Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
> ---
>  mm/memcontrol.c | 11 ++++++++++-
>  1 file changed, 10 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
> 
> diff --git a/mm/memcontrol.c b/mm/memcontrol.c
> index 6f6dc8712e39..df7fedbfc211 100644
> --- a/mm/memcontrol.c
> +++ b/mm/memcontrol.c
> @@ -6250,8 +6250,17 @@ enum mem_cgroup_protection mem_cgroup_protected(struct mem_cgroup *root,
>  
>  	if (!root)
>  		root = root_mem_cgroup;
> -	if (memcg == root)
> +	if (memcg == root) {
> +		/*
> +		 * Reset memory.(emin, elow) for reclaiming the memcg
> +		 * itself.
> +		 */
> +		if (memcg != root_mem_cgroup) {
> +			memcg->memory.emin = 0;
> +			memcg->memory.elow = 0;
> +		}
>  		return MEMCG_PROT_NONE;
> +	}
>  
>  	usage = page_counter_read(&memcg->memory);
>  	if (!usage)
> -- 
> 2.14.1

-- 
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs