Re: [PATCH] migration/mm: Add WARN_ON to try_offline_node

From: Michael Bringmann <mwb@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
To: Michal Hocko <mhocko@kernel.org>
Cc: Thomas Falcon <tlfalcon@linux.vnet.ibm.com>,
	Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>,
	Mathieu Malaterre <malat@debian.org>,
	Pavel Tatashin <pasha.tatashin@oracle.com>,
	Nicholas Piggin <npiggin@gmail.com>,
	linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-mm@kvack.org,
	Mauricio Faria de Oliveira <mauricfo@linux.vnet.ibm.com>,
	Juliet Kim <minkim@us.ibm.com>,
	Tyrel Datwyler <tyreld@linux.vnet.ibm.com>,
	Thiago Jung Bauermann <bauerman@linux.vnet.ibm.com>,
	Nathan Fontenot <nfont@linux.vnet.ibm.com>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
	YASUAKI ISHIMATSU <yasu.isimatu@gmail.com>,
	linuxppc-dev@lists.ozlabs.org,
	Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@intel.com>,
	Oscar Salvador <osalvador@suse.de>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] migration/mm: Add WARN_ON to try_offline_node
Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2018 13:13:22 -0500	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <e7dd66c1-d196-3a14-0115-acdaf538ebfd@linux.vnet.ibm.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20181002160446.GA18290@dhcp22.suse.cz>

On 10/02/2018 11:04 AM, Michal Hocko wrote:
> On Tue 02-10-18 10:14:49, Michael Bringmann wrote:
>> On 10/02/2018 09:59 AM, Michal Hocko wrote:
>>> On Tue 02-10-18 09:51:40, Michael Bringmann wrote:
>>> [...]
>>>> When the device-tree affinity attributes have changed for memory,
>>>> the 'nid' affinity calculated points to a different node for the
>>>> memory block than the one used to install it, previously on the
>>>> source system.  The newly calculated 'nid' affinity may not yet
>>>> be initialized on the target system.  The current memory tracking
>>>> mechanisms do not record the node to which a memory block was
>>>> associated when it was added.  Nathan is looking at adding this
>>>> feature to the new implementation of LMBs, but it is not there
>>>> yet, and won't be present in earlier kernels without backporting a
>>>> significant number of changes.
>>>
>>> Then the patch you have proposed here just papers over a real issue, no?
>>> IIUC then you simply do not remove the memory if you lose the race.
>>
>> The problem occurs when removing memory after an affinity change
>> references a node that was previously unreferenced.  Other code
>> in 'kernel/mm/memory_hotplug.c' deals with initializing an empty
>> node when adding memory to a system.  The 'removing memory' case is
>> specific to systems that perform LPM and allow device-tree changes.
>> The powerpc kernel does not have the option of accepting some PRRN
>> requests and accepting others.  It must perform them all.
> 
> I am sorry, but you are still too cryptic for me. Either there is a
> correctness issue and the the patch doesn't really fix anything or the
> final race doesn't make any difference and then the ppc code should be
> explicit about that. Checking the node inside the hotplug core code just
> looks as a wrong layer to mitigate an arch specific problem. I am not
> saying the patch is a no-go but if anything we want a big fat comment
> explaining how this is possible because right now it just points to an
> incorrect API usage.
> 
> That being said, this sounds pretty much ppc specific problem and I
> would _prefer_ it to be handled there (along with a big fat comment of
> course).

Let me try again.  Regardless of the path to which we get to this condition,
we currently crash the kernel.  This patch changes that to a WARN_ON notice
and continues executing the kernel without shutting down the system.  I saw
the problem during powerpc testing, because that is the focus of my work.
There are other paths to this function besides powerpc.  I feel that the
kernel should keep running instead of halting.

Regards,

-- 
Michael W. Bringmann
Linux Technology Center
IBM Corporation
Tie-Line  363-5196
External: (512) 286-5196
Cell:       (512) 466-0650
mwb@linux.vnet.ibm.com