This is a note to let you know that I've just added the patch titled

kaiser: _pgd_alloc() without __GFP_REPEAT to avoid stalls

to the 4.4-stable tree which can be found at: http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/stable-queue.git%3Ba=su...

The filename of the patch is: kaiser-_pgd_alloc-without-__gfp_repeat-to-avoid-stalls.patch and it can be found in the queue-4.4 subdirectory.

If you, or anyone else, feels it should not be added to the stable tree, please let stable@vger.kernel.org know about it.

From foo@baz Wed Jan 3 18:58:12 CET 2018

From: Hugh Dickins hughd@google.com Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2017 12:10:00 -0700 Subject: kaiser: _pgd_alloc() without __GFP_REPEAT to avoid stalls

From: Hugh Dickins hughd@google.com

Synthetic filesystem mempressure testing has shown softlockups, with hour-long page allocation stalls, and pgd_alloc() trying for order:1 with __GFP_REPEAT in one of the backtraces each time.

That's _pgd_alloc() going for a Kaiser double-pgd, using the __GFP_REPEAT common to all page table allocations, but actually having no effect on order:0 (see should_alloc_oom() and should_continue_reclaim() in this tree, but beware that ports to another tree might behave differently).

Order:1 stack allocation has been working satisfactorily without __GFP_REPEAT forever, and page table allocation only asks __GFP_REPEAT for awkward occasions in a long-running process: it's not appropriate at fork or exec time, and seems to be doing much more harm than good: getting those contiguous pages under very heavy mempressure can be hard (though even without it, Kaiser does generate more mempressure).

Mask out that __GFP_REPEAT inside _pgd_alloc(). Why not take it out of the PGALLOG_GFP altogether, as v4.7 commit a3a9a59d2067 ("x86: get rid of superfluous __GFP_REPEAT") did? Because I think that might make a difference to our page table memcg charging, which I'd prefer not to interfere with at this time.

hughd adds: __alloc_pages_slowpath() in the 4.4.89-stable tree handles __GFP_REPEAT a little differently than in prod kernel or 3.18.72-stable, so it may not always be exactly a no-op on order:0 pages, as said above; but I think still appropriate to omit it from Kaiser or non-Kaiser pgd.

Signed-off-by: Hugh Dickins hughd@google.com Acked-by: Jiri Kosina jkosina@suse.cz Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman gregkh@linuxfoundation.org --- arch/x86/mm/pgtable.c | 6 ++++-- 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

--- a/arch/x86/mm/pgtable.c +++ b/arch/x86/mm/pgtable.c @@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ #include <asm/fixmap.h> #include <asm/mtrr.h>

-#define PGALLOC_GFP GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_NOTRACK | __GFP_REPEAT | __GFP_ZERO +#define PGALLOC_GFP (GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_NOTRACK | __GFP_REPEAT | __GFP_ZERO)

#ifdef CONFIG_HIGHPTE #define PGALLOC_USER_GFP __GFP_HIGHMEM @@ -354,7 +354,9 @@ static inline void _pgd_free(pgd_t *pgd)

static inline pgd_t *_pgd_alloc(void) { - return (pgd_t *)__get_free_pages(PGALLOC_GFP, PGD_ALLOCATION_ORDER); + /* No __GFP_REPEAT: to avoid page allocation stalls in order-1 case */ + return (pgd_t *)__get_free_pages(PGALLOC_GFP & ~__GFP_REPEAT, + PGD_ALLOCATION_ORDER); }

static inline void _pgd_free(pgd_t *pgd)

Patches currently in stable-queue which might be from hughd@google.com are

queue-4.4/kaiser-vmstat-show-nr_kaisertable-as-nr_overhead.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-add-nokaiser-boot-option-using-alternative.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-fix-unlikely-error-in-alloc_ldt_struct.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-_pgd_alloc-without-__gfp_repeat-to-avoid-stalls.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-kaiser_flush_tlb_on_return_to_user-check-pcid.patch queue-4.4/x86-paravirt-dont-patch-flush_tlb_single.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-merged-update.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-delete-kaiser_real_switch-option.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-kaiser_remove_mapping-move-along-the-pgd.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-fix-perf-crashes.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-drop-is_atomic-arg-to-kaiser_pagetable_walk.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-load_new_mm_cr3-let-switch_user_cr3-flush-user.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-enhanced-by-kernel-and-user-pcids.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-x86_cr3_pcid_noflush-and-x86_cr3_pcid_user.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-use-alternative-instead-of-x86_cr3_pcid_noflush.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-stack-map-page_size-at-thread_size-page_size.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-name-that-0x1000-kaiser_shadow_pgd_offset.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-fix-regs-to-do_nmi-ifndef-config_kaiser.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-do-not-set-_page_nx-on-pgd_none.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-tidied-up-asm-kaiser.h-somewhat.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-cleanups-while-trying-for-gold-link.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-tidied-up-kaiser_add-remove_mapping-slightly.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-fix-build-and-fixme-in-alloc_ldt_struct.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-kernel-address-isolation.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-enomem-if-kaiser_pagetable_walk-null.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-asm-tlbflush.h-handle-nopge-at-lower-level.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-paranoid_entry-pass-cr3-need-to-paranoid_exit.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-kaiser-depends-on-smp.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-pcid-0-for-kernel-and-128-for-user.patch