Commit Graph

179 Commits

Author SHA1 Message Date
Paul Jackson
b4b2641843 [PATCH] cpuset: fork hook fix
Fix obscure, never seen in real life, cpuset fork race.  The cpuset_fork()
call in fork.c was setting up the correct task->cpuset pointer after the
tasklist_lock was dropped, which briefly exposed the newly forked process with
an unsafe (copied from parent without locks or usage counter increment) cpuset
pointer.

In theory, that exposed cpuset pointer could have been pointing at a cpuset
that was already freed and removed, and in theory another task that had been
sitting on the tasklist_lock waiting to scan the task list could have raced
down the entire tasklist, found our new child at the far end, and dereferenced
that bogus cpuset pointer.

To fix, setup up the correct cpuset pointer in the new child by calling
cpuset_fork() before the new task is linked into the tasklist, and with that,
add a fork failure case, to dereference that cpuset, if the fork fails along
the way, after cpuset_fork() was called.

Had to remove a BUG_ON() from cpuset_exit(), because it was no longer valid -
the call to cpuset_exit() from a failed fork would not have PF_EXITING set.

Signed-off-by: Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2006-01-08 20:13:43 -08:00
Ingo Molnar
e56d090310 [PATCH] RCU signal handling
RCU tasklist_lock and RCU signal handling: send signals RCU-read-locked
instead of tasklist_lock read-locked.  This is a scalability improvement on
SMP and a preemption-latency improvement under PREEMPT_RCU.

Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@us.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Acked-by: William Irwin <wli@holomorphy.com>
Cc: Roland McGrath <roland@redhat.com>
Cc: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@tv-sign.ru>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2006-01-08 20:13:40 -08:00
Paul Jackson
8c4b8add83 [PATCH] cpuset fork locking fix
Move the cpuset_fork() call below the write_unlock_irq call in
kernel/fork.c copy_process().

Since the cpuset-dual-semaphore-locking-overhaul.patch, the cpuset_fork()
routine acquires task_lock(), so cannot be called while holding the
tasklist_lock for write.

Signed-off-by: Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2005-11-28 14:42:24 -08:00
Andrew Morton
c13cf856cb [PATCH] fork.c: proc_fork_connector() called under write_lock()
Don't do that - it does GFP_KERNEL allocations, for a start.

(Reported by Guillaume Thouvenin <guillaume.thouvenin@bull.net>)

Acked-by: Matt Helsley <matthltc@us.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2005-11-28 14:42:23 -08:00
Hugh Dickins
0b0db14c53 [PATCH] unpaged: copy_page_range vma
For copy_one_pte's print_bad_pte to show the task correctly (instead of
"???"), dup_mmap must pass down parent vma rather than child vma.

Signed-off-by: Hugh Dickins <hugh@veritas.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2005-11-22 09:13:43 -08:00
Zach Brown
20dcae3243 [PATCH] aio: remove kioctx from mm_struct
Sync iocbs have a life cycle that don't need a kioctx.  Their retrying, if
any, is done in the context of their owner who has allocated them on the
stack.

The sole user of a sync iocb's ctx reference was aio_complete() checking for
an elevated iocb ref count that could never happen.  No path which grabs an
iocb ref has access to sync iocbs.

If we were to implement sync iocb cancelation it would be done by the owner of
the iocb using its on-stack reference.

Removing this chunk from aio_complete allows us to remove the entire kioctx
instance from mm_struct, reducing its size by a third.  On a i386 testing box
the slab size went from 768 to 504 bytes and from 5 to 8 per page.

Signed-off-by: Zach Brown <zach.brown@oracle.com>
Acked-by: Benjamin LaHaise <bcrl@kvack.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2005-11-13 18:14:16 -08:00
Al Viro
10ebffde3d [PATCH] m68k: introduce setup_thread_stack() and end_of_stack()
encapsulates the rest of arch-dependent operations with thread_info access.
Two new helpers - setup_thread_stack() and end_of_stack().  For normal case
the former consists of copying thread_info of parent to new thread_info and
the latter returns pointer immediately past the end of thread_info.

Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk>
Signed-off-by: Roman Zippel <zippel@linux-m68k.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2005-11-13 18:14:13 -08:00
Al Viro
a1261f5461 [PATCH] m68k: introduce task_thread_info
new helper - task_thread_info(task).  On platforms that have thread_info
allocated separately (i.e.  in default case) it simply returns
task->thread_info.  m68k wants (and for good reasons) to embed its thread_info
into task_struct.  So it will (in later patch) have task_thread_info() of its
own.  For now we just add a macro for generic case and convert existing
instances of its body in core kernel to uses of new macro.  Obviously safe -
all normal architectures get the same preprocessor output they used to get.

Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk>
Signed-off-by: Roman Zippel <zippel@linux-m68k.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2005-11-13 18:14:13 -08:00
Hugh Dickins
dedeb0029b [SPARC64] mm: context switch ptlock
sparc64 is unique among architectures in taking the page_table_lock in
its context switch (well, cris does too, but erroneously, and it's not
yet SMP anyway).

This seems to be a private affair between switch_mm and activate_mm,
using page_table_lock as a per-mm lock, without any relation to its uses
elsewhere.  That's fine, but comment it as such; and unlock sooner in
switch_mm, more like in activate_mm (preemption is disabled here).

There is a block of "if (0)"ed code in smp_flush_tlb_pending which would
have liked to rely on the page_table_lock, in switch_mm and elsewhere;
but its comment explains how dup_mmap's flush_tlb_mm defeated it.  And
though that could have been changed at any time over the past few years,
now the chance vanishes as we push the page_table_lock downwards, and
perhaps split it per page table page.  Just delete that block of code.

Which leaves the mysterious spin_unlock_wait(&oldmm->page_table_lock)
in kernel/fork.c copy_mm.  Textual analysis (supported by Nick Piggin)
suggests that the comment was written by DaveM, and that it relates to
the defeated approach in the sparc64 smp_flush_tlb_pending.  Just delete
this block too.

Signed-off-by: Hugh Dickins <hugh@veritas.com>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
2005-11-07 14:09:01 -08:00
Matt Helsley
9f46080c41 [PATCH] Process Events Connector
This patch adds a connector that reports fork, exec, id change, and exit
events for all processes to userspace.  It replaces the fork_advisor patch
that ELSA is currently using.  Applications that may find these events
useful include accounting/auditing (e.g.  ELSA), system activity monitoring
(e.g.  top), security, and resource management (e.g.  CKRM).

Signed-off-by: Matt Helsley <matthltc@us.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2005-11-07 07:53:35 -08:00
Hugh Dickins
c74df32c72 [PATCH] mm: ptd_alloc take ptlock
Second step in pushing down the page_table_lock.  Remove the temporary
bridging hack from __pud_alloc, __pmd_alloc, __pte_alloc: expect callers not
to hold page_table_lock, whether it's on init_mm or a user mm; take
page_table_lock internally to check if a racing task already allocated.

Convert their callers from common code.  But avoid coming back to change them
again later: instead of moving the spin_lock(&mm->page_table_lock) down,
switch over to new macros pte_alloc_map_lock and pte_unmap_unlock, which
encapsulate the mapping+locking and unlocking+unmapping together, and in the
end may use alternatives to the mm page_table_lock itself.

These callers all hold mmap_sem (some exclusively, some not), so at no level
can a page table be whipped away from beneath them; and pte_alloc uses the
"atomic" pmd_present to test whether it needs to allocate.  It appears that on
all arches we can safely descend without page_table_lock.

Signed-off-by: Hugh Dickins <hugh@veritas.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2005-10-29 21:40:40 -07:00
Hugh Dickins
7ee7823250 [PATCH] mm: dup_mmap down new mmap_sem
One anomaly remains from when Andrea rationalized the responsibilities of
mmap_sem and page_table_lock: in dup_mmap we add vmas to the child holding its
page_table_lock, but not the mmap_sem which normally guards the vma list and
rbtree.  Which could be an issue for unuse_mm: though since it just walks down
the list (today with page_table_lock, tomorrow not), it's probably okay.  Will
need a memory barrier?  Oh, keep it simple, Nick and I agreed, no harm in
taking child's mmap_sem here.

Signed-off-by: Hugh Dickins <hugh@veritas.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2005-10-29 21:40:38 -07:00
Hugh Dickins
fd3e42fcc8 [PATCH] mm: dup_mmap use oldmm more
Use the parent's oldmm throughout dup_mmap, instead of perversely going back
to current->mm.  (Can you hear the sigh of relief from those mpnts?  Usually I
squash them, but not today.)

Signed-off-by: Hugh Dickins <hugh@veritas.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2005-10-29 21:40:38 -07:00
Hugh Dickins
4294621f41 [PATCH] mm: rss = file_rss + anon_rss
I was lazy when we added anon_rss, and chose to change as few places as
possible.  So currently each anonymous page has to be counted twice, in rss
and in anon_rss.  Which won't be so good if those are atomic counts in some
configurations.

Change that around: keep file_rss and anon_rss separately, and add them
together (with get_mm_rss macro) when the total is needed - reading two
atomics is much cheaper than updating two atomics.  And update anon_rss
upfront, typically in memory.c, not tucked away in page_add_anon_rmap.

Signed-off-by: Hugh Dickins <hugh@veritas.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2005-10-29 21:40:38 -07:00
Hugh Dickins
404351e67a [PATCH] mm: mm_init set_mm_counters
How is anon_rss initialized?  In dup_mmap, and by mm_alloc's memset; but
that's not so good if an mm_counter_t is a special type.  And how is rss
initialized?  By set_mm_counter, all over the place.  Come on, we just need to
initialize them both at once by set_mm_counter in mm_init (which follows the
memcpy when forking).

Signed-off-by: Hugh Dickins <hugh@veritas.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2005-10-29 21:40:38 -07:00
Hugh Dickins
ab50b8ed81 [PATCH] mm: vm_stat_account unshackled
The original vm_stat_account has fallen into disuse, with only one user, and
only one user of vm_stat_unaccount.  It's easier to keep track if we convert
them all to __vm_stat_account, then free it from its __shackles.

Signed-off-by: Hugh Dickins <hugh@veritas.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2005-10-29 21:40:37 -07:00
Alan Stern
d1209d049b [PATCH] Threads shouldn't inherit PF_NOFREEZE
The PF_NOFREEZE process flag should not be inherited when a thread is
forked.  This patch (as585) removes the flag from the child.

This problem is starting to show up more and more as drivers turn to the
kthread API instead of using kernel_thread().  As a result, their kernel
threads are now children of the kthread worker instead of modprobe, and
they inherit the PF_NOFREEZE flag.  This can cause problems during system
suspend; the kernel threads are not getting frozen as they ought to be.

Signed-off-by: Alan Stern <stern@rowland.harvard.edu>
Acked-by: Pavel Machek <pavel@ucw.cz>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2005-10-19 23:04:31 -07:00
Srivatsa Vaddagiri
26ff6ad978 [PATCH] CPU hotplug breaks wake_up_new_task
Fix a problem wherein a new-born task is added to a dead CPU.

Signed-off-by: Srivatsa Vaddagiri <vatsa@in.ibm.com>
Acked-by: Nick Piggin <nickpiggin@yahoo.com.au>
Acked-by: Shaohua Li <shaohua.li@intel.com>
Acked-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2005-09-17 11:49:59 -07:00
Dipankar Sarma
ab2af1f500 [PATCH] files: files struct with RCU
Patch to eliminate struct files_struct.file_lock spinlock on the reader side
and use rcu refcounting rcuref_xxx api for the f_count refcounter.  The
updates to the fdtable are done by allocating a new fdtable structure and
setting files->fdt to point to the new structure.  The fdtable structure is
protected by RCU thereby allowing lock-free lookup.  For fd arrays/sets that
are vmalloced, we use keventd to free them since RCU callbacks can't sleep.  A
global list of fdtable to be freed is not scalable, so we use a per-cpu list.
If keventd is already handling the current cpu's work, we use a timer to defer
queueing of that work.

Since the last publication, this patch has been re-written to avoid using
explicit memory barriers and use rcu_assign_pointer(), rcu_dereference()
premitives instead.  This required that the fd information is kept in a
separate structure (fdtable) and updated atomically.

Signed-off-by: Dipankar Sarma <dipankar@in.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2005-09-09 13:57:55 -07:00
Dipankar Sarma
badf16621c [PATCH] files: break up files struct
In order for the RCU to work, the file table array, sets and their sizes must
be updated atomically.  Instead of ensuring this through too many memory
barriers, we put the arrays and their sizes in a separate structure.  This
patch takes the first step of putting the file table elements in a separate
structure fdtable that is embedded withing files_struct.  It also changes all
the users to refer to the file table using files_fdtable() macro.  Subsequent
applciation of RCU becomes easier after this.

Signed-off-by: Dipankar Sarma <dipankar@in.ibm.com>
Signed-Off-By: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2005-09-09 13:57:55 -07:00
Jason Baron
b0d62e6d5b [PATCH] fix disassociate_ctty vs. fork race
Race is as follows. Process A forks process B, both being part of the same
session. Then, A calls disassociate_ctty while B forks C:

A				B
====				====
				fork()
				  copy_signal()
dissasociate_ctty()		....
				  attach_pid(p, PIDTYPE_SID, p->signal->session);

Now, C can have current->signal->tty pointing to a freed tty structure, as
it hasn't yet been added to the session group (to have its controlling tty
cleared on the diassociate_ctty() call).

This has shown up as an oops but could be even more serious.  I haven't
tried to create a test case, but a customer has verified that the patch
below resolves the issue, which was occuring quite frequently.  I'll try
and post the test case if i can.

The patch simply checks for a NULL tty *after* it has been attached to the
proper session group and clears it as necessary.  Alternatively, we could
simply do the tty assignment after the the process is added to the proper
session group.

Signed-off-by: Jason Baron <jbaron@redhat.com>
Cc: Roland McGrath <roland@redhat.com>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2005-09-09 13:57:31 -07:00
Giancarlo Formicuccia
4b5d37ac02 [PATCH] Clear task_struct->fs_excl on fork()
An oversight.  We don't want to carry the IO scheduler's "we hold exclusive fs
resources" hint over to the child across fork().

Acked-by: Jens Axboe <axboe@suse.de>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2005-09-09 13:56:43 -07:00
Laurent Vivier
ed75e8d580 [PATCH] UML Support - Ptrace: adds the host SYSEMU support, for UML and general usage
Jeff Dike <jdike@addtoit.com>,
      Paolo 'Blaisorblade' Giarrusso <blaisorblade_spam@yahoo.it>,
      Bodo Stroesser <bstroesser@fujitsu-siemens.com>

Adds a new ptrace(2) mode, called PTRACE_SYSEMU, resembling PTRACE_SYSCALL
except that the kernel does not execute the requested syscall; this is useful
to improve performance for virtual environments, like UML, which want to run
the syscall on their own.

In fact, using PTRACE_SYSCALL means stopping child execution twice, on entry
and on exit, and each time you also have two context switches; with SYSEMU you
avoid the 2nd stop and so save two context switches per syscall.

Also, some architectures don't have support in the host for changing the
syscall number via ptrace(), which is currently needed to skip syscall
execution (UML turns any syscall into getpid() to avoid it being executed on
the host).  Fixing that is hard, while SYSEMU is easier to implement.

* This version of the patch includes some suggestions of Jeff Dike to avoid
  adding any instructions to the syscall fast path, plus some other little
  changes, by myself, to make it work even when the syscall is executed with
  SYSENTER (but I'm unsure about them). It has been widely tested for quite a
  lot of time.

* Various fixed were included to handle the various switches between
  various states, i.e. when for instance a syscall entry is traced with one of
  PT_SYSCALL / _SYSEMU / _SINGLESTEP and another one is used on exit.
  Basically, this is done by remembering which one of them was used even after
  the call to ptrace_notify().

* We're combining TIF_SYSCALL_EMU with TIF_SYSCALL_TRACE or TIF_SINGLESTEP
  to make do_syscall_trace() notice that the current syscall was started with
  SYSEMU on entry, so that no notification ought to be done in the exit path;
  this is a bit of a hack, so this problem is solved in another way in next
  patches.

* Also, the effects of the patch:
"Ptrace - i386: fix Syscall Audit interaction with singlestep"
are cancelled; they are restored back in the last patch of this series.

Detailed descriptions of the patches doing this kind of processing follow (but
I've already summed everything up).

* Fix behaviour when changing interception kind #1.

  In do_syscall_trace(), we check the status of the TIF_SYSCALL_EMU flag
  only after doing the debugger notification; but the debugger might have
  changed the status of this flag because he continued execution with
  PTRACE_SYSCALL, so this is wrong.  This patch fixes it by saving the flag
  status before calling ptrace_notify().

* Fix behaviour when changing interception kind #2:
  avoid intercepting syscall on return when using SYSCALL again.

  A guest process switching from using PTRACE_SYSEMU to PTRACE_SYSCALL
  crashes.

  The problem is in arch/i386/kernel/entry.S.  The current SYSEMU patch
  inhibits the syscall-handler to be called, but does not prevent
  do_syscall_trace() to be called after this for syscall completion
  interception.

  The appended patch fixes this.  It reuses the flag TIF_SYSCALL_EMU to
  remember "we come from PTRACE_SYSEMU and now are in PTRACE_SYSCALL", since
  the flag is unused in the depicted situation.

* Fix behaviour when changing interception kind #3:
  avoid intercepting syscall on return when using SINGLESTEP.

  When testing 2.6.9 and the skas3.v6 patch, with my latest patch and had
  problems with singlestepping on UML in SKAS with SYSEMU.  It looped
  receiving SIGTRAPs without moving forward.  EIP of the traced process was
  the same for all SIGTRAPs.

What's missing is to handle switching from PTRACE_SYSCALL_EMU to
PTRACE_SINGLESTEP in a way very similar to what is done for the change from
PTRACE_SYSCALL_EMU to PTRACE_SYSCALL_TRACE.

I.e., after calling ptrace(PTRACE_SYSEMU), on the return path, the debugger is
notified and then wake ups the process; the syscall is executed (or skipped,
when do_syscall_trace() returns 0, i.e.  when using PTRACE_SYSEMU), and
do_syscall_trace() is called again.  Since we are on the return path of a
SYSEMU'd syscall, if the wake up is performed through ptrace(PTRACE_SYSCALL),
we must still avoid notifying the parent of the syscall exit.  Now, this
behaviour is extended even to resuming with PTRACE_SINGLESTEP.

Signed-off-by: Paolo 'Blaisorblade' Giarrusso <blaisorblade@yahoo.it>
Cc: Jeff Dike <jdike@addtoit.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2005-09-05 00:06:20 -07:00
Hugh Dickins
3b6bfcdb11 [PATCH] lower VM_DONTCOPY total_vm
dup_mmap of a VM_DONTCOPY vma forgot to lower the child's total_vm.  (But
no way does this account for the recent report of total_vm seen too low.)

Signed-off-by: Hugh Dickins <hugh@veritas.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2005-07-12 16:00:58 -07:00
Jens Axboe
22e2c507c3 [PATCH] Update cfq io scheduler to time sliced design
This updates the CFQ io scheduler to the new time sliced design (cfq
v3).  It provides full process fairness, while giving excellent
aggregate system throughput even for many competing processes.  It
supports io priorities, either inherited from the cpu nice value or set
directly with the ioprio_get/set syscalls.  The latter closely mimic
set/getpriority.

This import is based on my latest from -mm.

Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <axboe@suse.de>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2005-06-27 14:33:29 -07:00
Nick Piggin
476d139c21 [PATCH] sched: consolidate sbe sbf
Consolidate balance-on-exec with balance-on-fork.  This is made easy by the
sched-domains RCU patches.

As well as the general goodness of code reduction, this allows the runqueues
to be unlocked during balance-on-fork.

schedstats is a problem.  Maybe just have balance-on-event instead of
distinguishing fork and exec?

Signed-off-by: Nick Piggin <nickpiggin@yahoo.com.au>
Acked-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2005-06-25 16:24:44 -07:00
Hugh Dickins
45918e1a8b [PATCH] dup_mmap: update comment on new vma
Remove part of comment on linking new vma in dup_mmap: since anon_vma rmap
came in, try_to_unmap_one knows the vma without needing find_vma.  But add
a comment to note that here vma is inserted without mmap_sem.

Signed-off-by: Hugh Dickins <hugh@veritas.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2005-06-21 18:46:19 -07:00
Wolfgang Wander
1363c3cd86 [PATCH] Avoiding mmap fragmentation
Ingo recently introduced a great speedup for allocating new mmaps using the
free_area_cache pointer which boosts the specweb SSL benchmark by 4-5% and
causes huge performance increases in thread creation.

The downside of this patch is that it does lead to fragmentation in the
mmap-ed areas (visible via /proc/self/maps), such that some applications
that work fine under 2.4 kernels quickly run out of memory on any 2.6
kernel.

The problem is twofold:

  1) the free_area_cache is used to continue a search for memory where
     the last search ended.  Before the change new areas were always
     searched from the base address on.

     So now new small areas are cluttering holes of all sizes
     throughout the whole mmap-able region whereas before small holes
     tended to close holes near the base leaving holes far from the base
     large and available for larger requests.

  2) the free_area_cache also is set to the location of the last
     munmap-ed area so in scenarios where we allocate e.g.  five regions of
     1K each, then free regions 4 2 3 in this order the next request for 1K
     will be placed in the position of the old region 3, whereas before we
     appended it to the still active region 1, placing it at the location
     of the old region 2.  Before we had 1 free region of 2K, now we only
     get two free regions of 1K -> fragmentation.

The patch addresses thes issues by introducing yet another cache descriptor
cached_hole_size that contains the largest known hole size below the
current free_area_cache.  If a new request comes in the size is compared
against the cached_hole_size and if the request can be filled with a hole
below free_area_cache the search is started from the base instead.

The results look promising: Whereas 2.6.12-rc4 fragments quickly and my
(earlier posted) leakme.c test program terminates after 50000+ iterations
with 96 distinct and fragmented maps in /proc/self/maps it performs nicely
(as expected) with thread creation, Ingo's test_str02 with 20000 threads
requires 0.7s system time.

Taking out Ingo's patch (un-patch available per request) by basically
deleting all mentions of free_area_cache from the kernel and starting the
search for new memory always at the respective bases we observe: leakme
terminates successfully with 11 distinctive hardly fragmented areas in
/proc/self/maps but thread creating is gringdingly slow: 30+s(!) system
time for Ingo's test_str02 with 20000 threads.

Now - drumroll ;-) the appended patch works fine with leakme: it ends with
only 7 distinct areas in /proc/self/maps and also thread creation seems
sufficiently fast with 0.71s for 20000 threads.

Signed-off-by: Wolfgang Wander <wwc@rentec.com>
Credit-to: "Richard Purdie" <rpurdie@rpsys.net>
Signed-off-by: Ken Chen <kenneth.w.chen@intel.com>
Acked-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu> (partly)
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2005-06-21 18:46:16 -07:00
Linus Torvalds
1da177e4c3 Linux-2.6.12-rc2
Initial git repository build. I'm not bothering with the full history,
even though we have it. We can create a separate "historical" git
archive of that later if we want to, and in the meantime it's about
3.2GB when imported into git - space that would just make the early
git days unnecessarily complicated, when we don't have a lot of good
infrastructure for it.

Let it rip!
2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07:00