Re: [PATCH] nvme: Drop WQ_MEM_RECLAIM flag from core workqueues

[Jason Gunthorpe]

On Mon, Apr 12, 2021 at 02:49:09PM +0200, Daniel Wagner wrote:

> I've grepped through the code and didn't find anything which supports
> the guarantee claim. Neither mm nor schedule seems to care about this
> flag nor workqueue.c (except the early init bits). Or I must miss
> something.

It is pretty complicated, but the WQ_MEM_RECLAIM preallocates a thread:

static int init_rescuer(struct workqueue_struct *wq)
{
	if (!(wq->flags & WQ_MEM_RECLAIM))
		return 0;

	rescuer = alloc_worker(NUMA_NO_NODE);

This comment explains it:

 * Workqueue rescuer thread function.  There's one rescuer for each
 * workqueue which has WQ_MEM_RECLAIM set.
 *
 * Regular work processing on a pool may block trying to create a new
 * worker which uses GFP_KERNEL allocation which has slight chance of
 * developing into deadlock if some works currently on the same queue
 * need to be processed to satisfy the GFP_KERNEL allocation.  This is
 * the problem rescuer solves.
 *
 * When such condition is possible, the pool summons rescuers of all
 * workqueues which have works queued on the pool and let them process
 * those works so that forward progress can be guaranteed.
 *
 * This should happen rarely.

Basically the allocation of importance in the workqueue is assigning a
worker, so pre-allocating a worker ensures the work can continue to
progress without becoming dependent on allocations.

This is why work under the WQ_MEM_RECLAIM cannot recurse back into the
allocator as it would get a rescurer thread stuck at a point when all
other threads are already stuck.

To remove WQ_MEM_RECLAIM you have to make assertions about the calling
contexts and blocking contexts of the workqueue, not what the work
itself is doing.

Jason