[BUG] random kernel crashes after THP rework on s390 (maybe also on PowerPC and ARM)

[Gerald Schaefer]

On Thu, 11 Feb 2016 21:09:42 +0200
"Kirill A. Shutemov" <kirill at shutemov.name> wrote:

> On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 07:22:23PM +0100, Gerald Schaefer wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > Sebastian Ott reported random kernel crashes beginning with v4.5-rc1 and
> > he also bisected this to commit 61f5d698 "mm: re-enable THP". Further
> > review of the THP rework patches, which cannot be bisected, revealed
> > commit fecffad "s390, thp: remove infrastructure for handling splitting PMDs"
> > (and also similar commits for other archs).
> > 
> > This commit removes the THP splitting bit and also the architecture
> > implementation of pmdp_splitting_flush(), which took care of the IPI for
> > fast_gup serialization. The commit message says
> > 
> >     pmdp_splitting_flush() is not needed too: on splitting PMD we will do
> >     pmdp_clear_flush() + set_pte_at().  pmdp_clear_flush() will do IPI as
> >     needed for fast_gup
> > 
> > The assumption that a TLB flush will also produce an IPI is wrong on s390,
> > and maybe also on other architectures, and I thought that this was actually
> > the main reason for having an arch-specific pmdp_splitting_flush().
> > 
> > At least PowerPC and ARM also had an individual implementation of
> > pmdp_splitting_flush() that used kick_all_cpus_sync() instead of a TLB
> > flush to send the IPI, and those were also removed. Putting the arch
> > maintainers and mailing lists on cc to verify.
> > 
> > On s390 this will break the IPI serialization against fast_gup, which
> > would certainly explain the random kernel crashes, please revert or fix
> > the pmdp_splitting_flush() removal.
> 
> Sorry for that.
> 
> I believe, the problem was already addressed for PowerPC:
> 
> http://lkml.kernel.org/g/454980831-16631-1-git-send-email-aneesh.kumar@linux.vnet.ibm.com
> 
> I think kick_all_cpus_sync() in arch-specific pmdp_invalidate() would do
> the trick, right?

Hmm, not sure about that. After pmdp_invalidate(), a pmd_none() check in
fast_gup will still return false, because the pmd is not empty (at least
on s390). So I don't see spontaneously how it will help fast_gup to break
out to the slow path in case of THP splitting.

> 
> If yes, I'll prepare patch tomorrow (some sleep required).
> 

We'll check if adding kick_all_cpus_sync() to pmdp_invalidate() helps.
It would also be good if Martin has a look at this, he'll return on
Monday.