Failing XFS memory allocation

[Nikolay Borisov]

Hello,

So I have an XFS filesystem which houses 2 2.3T sparse files, which are
loop-mounted. Recently I migrated a server to a 4.4.6 kernel and this
morning I observed the following in my dmesg:

XFS: loop0(15174) possible memory allocation deadlock size 107168 in
kmem_alloc (mode:0x2400240)

the mode is essentially (GFP_KERNEL | GFP_NOWARN) &= ~__GFP_FS.
Here is the site of the loop file in case it matters:

du -h --apparent-size /storage/loop/file1
2.3T	/storage/loop/file1

du -h /storage/loop/file1
878G	/storage/loop/file1

And this string is repeated multiple times. Looking at the output of
"echo w > /proc/sysrq-trigger" I see the following suspicious entry:

loop0           D ffff881fe081f038     0 15174      2 0x00000000
 ffff881fe081f038 ffff883ff29fa700 ffff881fecb70d00 ffff88407fffae00
 0000000000000000 0000000502404240 ffffffff81e30d60 0000000000000000
 0000000000000000 ffff881f00000003 0000000000000282 ffff883f00000000
Call Trace:
 [<ffffffff8163ac01>] ? _raw_spin_lock_irqsave+0x21/0x60
 [<ffffffff81636fd7>] schedule+0x47/0x90
 [<ffffffff81639f03>] schedule_timeout+0x113/0x1e0
 [<ffffffff810ac580>] ? lock_timer_base+0x80/0x80
 [<ffffffff816363d4>] io_schedule_timeout+0xa4/0x110
 [<ffffffff8114aadf>] congestion_wait+0x7f/0x130
 [<ffffffff810939e0>] ? woken_wake_function+0x20/0x20
 [<ffffffffa0283bac>] kmem_alloc+0x8c/0x120 [xfs]
 [<ffffffff81181751>] ? __kmalloc+0x121/0x250
 [<ffffffffa0283c73>] kmem_realloc+0x33/0x80 [xfs]
 [<ffffffffa02546cd>] xfs_iext_realloc_indirect+0x3d/0x60 [xfs]
 [<ffffffffa02548cf>] xfs_iext_irec_new+0x3f/0xf0 [xfs]
 [<ffffffffa0254c0d>] xfs_iext_add_indirect_multi+0x14d/0x210 [xfs]
 [<ffffffffa02554b5>] xfs_iext_add+0xc5/0x230 [xfs]
 [<ffffffff8112b5c5>] ? mempool_alloc_slab+0x15/0x20
 [<ffffffffa0256269>] xfs_iext_insert+0x59/0x110 [xfs]
 [<ffffffffa0230928>] ? xfs_bmap_add_extent_hole_delay+0xd8/0x740 [xfs]
 [<ffffffffa0230928>] xfs_bmap_add_extent_hole_delay+0xd8/0x740 [xfs]
 [<ffffffff8112b5c5>] ? mempool_alloc_slab+0x15/0x20
 [<ffffffff8112b725>] ? mempool_alloc+0x65/0x180
 [<ffffffffa02543d8>] ? xfs_iext_get_ext+0x38/0x70 [xfs]
 [<ffffffffa0254e8d>] ? xfs_iext_bno_to_ext+0xed/0x150 [xfs]
 [<ffffffffa02311b5>] xfs_bmapi_reserve_delalloc+0x225/0x250 [xfs]
 [<ffffffffa023131e>] xfs_bmapi_delay+0x13e/0x290 [xfs]
 [<ffffffffa02730ad>] xfs_iomap_write_delay+0x17d/0x300 [xfs]
 [<ffffffffa022e434>] ? xfs_bmapi_read+0x114/0x330 [xfs]
 [<ffffffffa025ddc5>] __xfs_get_blocks+0x585/0xa90 [xfs]
 [<ffffffff81324b53>] ? __percpu_counter_add+0x63/0x80
 [<ffffffff811374cd>] ? account_page_dirtied+0xed/0x1b0
 [<ffffffff811cfc59>] ? alloc_buffer_head+0x49/0x60
 [<ffffffff811d07c0>] ? alloc_page_buffers+0x60/0xb0
 [<ffffffff811d13e5>] ? create_empty_buffers+0x45/0xc0
 [<ffffffffa025e324>] xfs_get_blocks+0x14/0x20 [xfs]
 [<ffffffff811d34e2>] __block_write_begin+0x1c2/0x580
 [<ffffffffa025e310>] ? xfs_get_blocks_direct+0x20/0x20 [xfs]
 [<ffffffffa025bbb1>] xfs_vm_write_begin+0x61/0xf0 [xfs]
 [<ffffffff81127e50>] generic_perform_write+0xd0/0x1f0
 [<ffffffffa026a341>] xfs_file_buffered_aio_write+0xe1/0x240 [xfs]
 [<ffffffff812e16d2>] ? bt_clear_tag+0xb2/0xd0
 [<ffffffffa026ab87>] xfs_file_write_iter+0x167/0x170 [xfs]
 [<ffffffff81199d76>] vfs_iter_write+0x76/0xa0
 [<ffffffffa03fb735>] lo_write_bvec+0x65/0x100 [loop]
 [<ffffffffa03fd589>] loop_queue_work+0x689/0x924 [loop]
 [<ffffffff8163ba52>] ? retint_kernel+0x10/0x10
 [<ffffffff81074d71>] kthread_worker_fn+0x61/0x1c0
 [<ffffffff81074d10>] ? flush_kthread_work+0x120/0x120
 [<ffffffff81074d10>] ? flush_kthread_work+0x120/0x120
 [<ffffffff810744d7>] kthread+0xd7/0xf0
 [<ffffffff8107d22e>] ? schedule_tail+0x1e/0xd0
 [<ffffffff81074400>] ? kthread_freezable_should_stop+0x80/0x80
 [<ffffffff8163b2af>] ret_from_fork+0x3f/0x70
 [<ffffffff81074400>] ? kthread_freezable_should_stop+0x80/0x80

So this seems that there are writes to the loop device being queued and
while being served XFS has to do some internal memory allocation to fit
the new data, however due to some *uknown* reason it fails and starts
looping in kmem_alloc.  I didn't see any OOM reports so presumably the
server was not out of memory, but unfortunately I didn't check the
memory fragmentation, though I collected a crash dump in case you need
further info.

The one thing which bugs me is that XFS tried to allocate 107 contiguous
kb which is page-order-26 isn't this waaaaay too big and almost never
satisfiable, despite direct/bg reclaim to be enabled? For now I've
reverted to using 3.12.52 kernel, where this issue hasn't been observed
(yet) any ideas would be much appreciated.