tree 581a51f3f04f18bf3e8b906fa2d6f440ccd12055
parent c67a8a685a6e9abbaf0235e084168f15a721ae39
author Vladimir Davydov <vdavydov@parallels.com> 1401923260 -0700
committer Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> 1401926041 -0700

memcg, slab: simplify synchronization scheme

At present, we have the following mutexes protecting data related to per
memcg kmem caches:

 - slab_mutex.  This one is held during the whole kmem cache creation
   and destruction paths.  We also take it when updating per root cache
   memcg_caches arrays (see memcg_update_all_caches).  As a result, taking
   it guarantees there will be no changes to any kmem cache (including per
   memcg).  Why do we need something else then?  The point is it is
   private to slab implementation and has some internal dependencies with
   other mutexes (get_online_cpus).  So we just don't want to rely upon it
   and prefer to introduce additional mutexes instead.

 - activate_kmem_mutex.  Initially it was added to synchronize
   initializing kmem limit (memcg_activate_kmem).  However, since we can
   grow per root cache memcg_caches arrays only on kmem limit
   initialization (see memcg_update_all_caches), we also employ it to
   protect against memcg_caches arrays relocation (e.g.  see
   __kmem_cache_destroy_memcg_children).

 - We have a convention not to take slab_mutex in memcontrol.c, but we
   want to walk over per memcg memcg_slab_caches lists there (e.g.  for
   destroying all memcg caches on offline).  So we have per memcg
   slab_caches_mutex's protecting those lists.

The mutexes are taken in the following order:

   activate_kmem_mutex -> slab_mutex -> memcg::slab_caches_mutex

Such a syncrhonization scheme has a number of flaws, for instance:

 - We can't call kmem_cache_{destroy,shrink} while walking over a
   memcg::memcg_slab_caches list due to locking order.  As a result, in
   mem_cgroup_destroy_all_caches we schedule the
   memcg_cache_params::destroy work shrinking and destroying the cache.

 - We don't have a mutex to synchronize per memcg caches destruction
   between memcg offline (mem_cgroup_destroy_all_caches) and root cache
   destruction (__kmem_cache_destroy_memcg_children).  Currently we just
   don't bother about it.

This patch simplifies it by substituting per memcg slab_caches_mutex's
with the global memcg_slab_mutex.  It will be held whenever a new per
memcg cache is created or destroyed, so it protects per root cache
memcg_caches arrays and per memcg memcg_slab_caches lists.  The locking
order is following:

   activate_kmem_mutex -> memcg_slab_mutex -> slab_mutex

This allows us to call kmem_cache_{create,shrink,destroy} under the
memcg_slab_mutex.  As a result, we don't need memcg_cache_params::destroy
work any more - we can simply destroy caches while iterating over a per
memcg slab caches list.

Also using the global mutex simplifies synchronization between concurrent
per memcg caches creation/destruction, e.g.  mem_cgroup_destroy_all_caches
vs __kmem_cache_destroy_memcg_children.

The downside of this is that we substitute per-memcg slab_caches_mutex's
with a hummer-like global mutex, but since we already take either the
slab_mutex or the cgroup_mutex along with a memcg::slab_caches_mutex, it
shouldn't hurt concurrency a lot.

Signed-off-by: Vladimir Davydov <vdavydov@parallels.com>
Acked-by: Johannes Weiner <hannes@cmpxchg.org>
Cc: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.cz>
Cc: Glauber Costa <glommer@gmail.com>
Cc: Pekka Enberg <penberg@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>