mm/page-writeback.c: add strictlimit feature

The feature prevents mistrusted filesystems (ie: FUSE mounts created by
unprivileged users) to grow a large number of dirty pages before
throttling.  For such filesystems balance_dirty_pages always check bdi
counters against bdi limits.  I.e.  even if global "nr_dirty" is under
"freerun", it's not allowed to skip bdi checks.  The only use case for now
is fuse: it sets bdi max_ratio to 1% by default and system administrators
are supposed to expect that this limit won't be exceeded.

The feature is on if a BDI is marked by BDI_CAP_STRICTLIMIT flag.  A
filesystem may set the flag when it initializes its BDI.

The problematic scenario comes from the fact that nobody pays attention to
the NR_WRITEBACK_TEMP counter (i.e.  number of pages under fuse
writeback).  The implementation of fuse writeback releases original page
(by calling end_page_writeback) almost immediately.  A fuse request queued
for real processing bears a copy of original page.  Hence, if userspace
fuse daemon doesn't finalize write requests in timely manner, an
aggressive mmap writer can pollute virtually all memory by those temporary
fuse page copies.  They are carefully accounted in NR_WRITEBACK_TEMP, but
nobody cares.

To make further explanations shorter, let me use "NR_WRITEBACK_TEMP
problem" as a shortcut for "a possibility of uncontrolled grow of amount
of RAM consumed by temporary pages allocated by kernel fuse to process
writeback".

The problem was very easy to reproduce.  There is a trivial example
filesystem implementation in fuse userspace distribution: fusexmp_fh.c.  I
added "sleep(1);" to the write methods, then recompiled and mounted it.
Then created a huge file on the mount point and run a simple program which
mmap-ed the file to a memory region, then wrote a data to the region.  An
hour later I observed almost all RAM consumed by fuse writeback.  Since
then some unrelated changes in kernel fuse made it more difficult to
reproduce, but it is still possible now.

Putting this theoretical happens-in-the-lab thing aside, there is another
thing that really hurts real world (FUSE) users.  This is write-through
page cache policy FUSE currently uses.  I.e.  handling write(2), kernel
fuse populates page cache and flushes user data to the server
synchronously.  This is excessively suboptimal.  Pavel Emelyanov's patches
("writeback cache policy") solve the problem, but they also make resolving
NR_WRITEBACK_TEMP problem absolutely necessary.  Otherwise, simply copying
a huge file to a fuse mount would result in memory starvation.  Miklos,
the maintainer of FUSE, believes strictlimit feature the way to go.

And eventually putting FUSE topics aside, there is one more use-case for
strictlimit feature.  Using a slow USB stick (mass storage) in a machine
with huge amount of RAM installed is a well-known pain.  Let's make simple
computations.  Assuming 64GB of RAM installed, existing implementation of
balance_dirty_pages will start throttling only after 9.6GB of RAM becomes
dirty (freerun == 15% of total RAM).  So, the command "cp 9GB_file
/media/my-usb-storage/" may return in a few seconds, but subsequent
"umount /media/my-usb-storage/" will take more than two hours if effective
throughput of the storage is, to say, 1MB/sec.

After inclusion of strictlimit feature, it will be trivial to add a knob
(e.g.  /sys/devices/virtual/bdi/x:y/strictlimit) to enable it on demand.
Manually or via udev rule.  May be I'm wrong, but it seems to be quite a
natural desire to limit the amount of dirty memory for some devices we are
not fully trust (in the sense of sustainable throughput).

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix warning in page-writeback.c]
Signed-off-by: Maxim Patlasov <MPatlasov@parallels.com>
Cc: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Cc: Miklos Szeredi <miklos@szeredi.hu>
Cc: Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
Cc: Pavel Emelyanov <xemul@parallels.com>
Cc: James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@HansenPartnership.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>

fs/fuse/inode.c

@@ -930,7 +930,7 @@ static int fuse_bdi_init(struct fuse_conn *fc, struct super_block *sb)
 	fc->bdi.name = "fuse";
 	fc->bdi.ra_pages = (VM_MAX_READAHEAD * 1024) / PAGE_CACHE_SIZE;
 	/* fuse does it's own writeback accounting */
-	fc->bdi.capabilities = BDI_CAP_NO_ACCT_WB;
+	fc->bdi.capabilities = BDI_CAP_NO_ACCT_WB | BDI_CAP_STRICTLIMIT;
 
 	err = bdi_init(&fc->bdi);
 	if (err)

include/linux/backing-dev.h

@@ -243,6 +243,8 @@ int bdi_set_max_ratio(struct backing_dev_info *bdi, unsigned int max_ratio);
  * BDI_CAP_EXEC_MAP:       Can be mapped for execution
  *
  * BDI_CAP_SWAP_BACKED:    Count shmem/tmpfs objects as swap-backed.
+ *
+ * BDI_CAP_STRICTLIMIT:    Keep number of dirty pages below bdi threshold.
  */
 #define BDI_CAP_NO_ACCT_DIRTY	0x00000001
 #define BDI_CAP_NO_WRITEBACK	0x00000002
@@ -254,6 +256,7 @@ int bdi_set_max_ratio(struct backing_dev_info *bdi, unsigned int max_ratio);
 #define BDI_CAP_NO_ACCT_WB	0x00000080
 #define BDI_CAP_SWAP_BACKED	0x00000100
 #define BDI_CAP_STABLE_WRITES	0x00000200
+#define BDI_CAP_STRICTLIMIT	0x00000400
 
 #define BDI_CAP_VMFLAGS \
 	(BDI_CAP_READ_MAP | BDI_CAP_WRITE_MAP | BDI_CAP_EXEC_MAP)

mm/page-writeback.c

@@ -584,6 +584,37 @@ unsigned long bdi_dirty_limit(struct backing_dev_info *bdi, unsigned long dirty)
 	return bdi_dirty;
 }
 
+/*
+ *                           setpoint - dirty 3
+ *        f(dirty) := 1.0 + (----------------)
+ *                           limit - setpoint
+ *
+ * it's a 3rd order polynomial that subjects to
+ *
+ * (1) f(freerun)  = 2.0 => rampup dirty_ratelimit reasonably fast
+ * (2) f(setpoint) = 1.0 => the balance point
+ * (3) f(limit)    = 0   => the hard limit
+ * (4) df/dx      <= 0	 => negative feedback control
+ * (5) the closer to setpoint, the smaller |df/dx| (and the reverse)
+ *     => fast response on large errors; small oscillation near setpoint
+ */
+static inline long long pos_ratio_polynom(unsigned long setpoint,
+					  unsigned long dirty,
+					  unsigned long limit)
+{
+	long long pos_ratio;
+	long x;
+
+	x = div_s64(((s64)setpoint - (s64)dirty) << RATELIMIT_CALC_SHIFT,
+		    limit - setpoint + 1);
+	pos_ratio = x;
+	pos_ratio = pos_ratio * x >> RATELIMIT_CALC_SHIFT;
+	pos_ratio = pos_ratio * x >> RATELIMIT_CALC_SHIFT;
+	pos_ratio += 1 << RATELIMIT_CALC_SHIFT;
+
+	return clamp(pos_ratio, 0LL, 2LL << RATELIMIT_CALC_SHIFT);
+}
+
 /*
  * Dirty position control.
  *
@@ -682,26 +713,80 @@ static unsigned long bdi_position_ratio(struct backing_dev_info *bdi,
 	/*
 	 * global setpoint
 	 *
-	 *                           setpoint - dirty 3
+	 * See comment for pos_ratio_polynom().
-	 *        f(dirty) := 1.0 + (----------------)
-	 *                           limit - setpoint
-	 *
-	 * it's a 3rd order polynomial that subjects to
-	 *
-	 * (1) f(freerun)  = 2.0 => rampup dirty_ratelimit reasonably fast
-	 * (2) f(setpoint) = 1.0 => the balance point
-	 * (3) f(limit)    = 0   => the hard limit
-	 * (4) df/dx      <= 0	 => negative feedback control
-	 * (5) the closer to setpoint, the smaller |df/dx| (and the reverse)
-	 *     => fast response on large errors; small oscillation near setpoint
 	 */
 	setpoint = (freerun + limit) / 2;
-	x = div_s64(((s64)setpoint - (s64)dirty) << RATELIMIT_CALC_SHIFT,
+	pos_ratio = pos_ratio_polynom(setpoint, dirty, limit);
-		    limit - setpoint + 1);
+
-	pos_ratio = x;
+	/*
-	pos_ratio = pos_ratio * x >> RATELIMIT_CALC_SHIFT;
+	 * The strictlimit feature is a tool preventing mistrusted filesystems
-	pos_ratio = pos_ratio * x >> RATELIMIT_CALC_SHIFT;
+	 * from growing a large number of dirty pages before throttling. For
-	pos_ratio += 1 << RATELIMIT_CALC_SHIFT;
+	 * such filesystems balance_dirty_pages always checks bdi counters
+	 * against bdi limits. Even if global "nr_dirty" is under "freerun".
+	 * This is especially important for fuse which sets bdi->max_ratio to
+	 * 1% by default. Without strictlimit feature, fuse writeback may
+	 * consume arbitrary amount of RAM because it is accounted in
+	 * NR_WRITEBACK_TEMP which is not involved in calculating "nr_dirty".
+	 *
+	 * Here, in bdi_position_ratio(), we calculate pos_ratio based on
+	 * two values: bdi_dirty and bdi_thresh. Let's consider an example:
+	 * total amount of RAM is 16GB, bdi->max_ratio is equal to 1%, global
+	 * limits are set by default to 10% and 20% (background and throttle).
+	 * Then bdi_thresh is 1% of 20% of 16GB. This amounts to ~8K pages.
+	 * bdi_dirty_limit(bdi, bg_thresh) is about ~4K pages. bdi_setpoint is
+	 * about ~6K pages (as the average of background and throttle bdi
+	 * limits). The 3rd order polynomial will provide positive feedback if
+	 * bdi_dirty is under bdi_setpoint and vice versa.
+	 *
+	 * Note, that we cannot use global counters in these calculations
+	 * because we want to throttle process writing to a strictlimit BDI
+	 * much earlier than global "freerun" is reached (~23MB vs. ~2.3GB
+	 * in the example above).
+	 */
+	if (unlikely(bdi->capabilities & BDI_CAP_STRICTLIMIT)) {
+		long long bdi_pos_ratio;
+		unsigned long bdi_bg_thresh;
+
+		if (bdi_dirty < 8)
+			return min_t(long long, pos_ratio * 2,
+				     2 << RATELIMIT_CALC_SHIFT);
+
+		if (bdi_dirty >= bdi_thresh)
+			return 0;
+
+		bdi_bg_thresh = div_u64((u64)bdi_thresh * bg_thresh, thresh);
+		bdi_setpoint = dirty_freerun_ceiling(bdi_thresh,
+						     bdi_bg_thresh);
+
+		if (bdi_setpoint == 0 || bdi_setpoint == bdi_thresh)
+			return 0;
+
+		bdi_pos_ratio = pos_ratio_polynom(bdi_setpoint, bdi_dirty,
+						  bdi_thresh);
+
+		/*
+		 * Typically, for strictlimit case, bdi_setpoint << setpoint
+		 * and pos_ratio >> bdi_pos_ratio. In the other words global
+		 * state ("dirty") is not limiting factor and we have to
+		 * make decision based on bdi counters. But there is an
+		 * important case when global pos_ratio should get precedence:
+		 * global limits are exceeded (e.g. due to activities on other
+		 * BDIs) while given strictlimit BDI is below limit.
+		 *
+		 * "pos_ratio * bdi_pos_ratio" would work for the case above,
+		 * but it would look too non-natural for the case of all
+		 * activity in the system coming from a single strictlimit BDI
+		 * with bdi->max_ratio == 100%.
+		 *
+		 * Note that min() below somewhat changes the dynamics of the
+		 * control system. Normally, pos_ratio value can be well over 3
+		 * (when globally we are at freerun and bdi is well below bdi
+		 * setpoint). Now the maximum pos_ratio in the same situation
+		 * is 2. We might want to tweak this if we observe the control
+		 * system is too slow to adapt.
+		 */
+		return min(pos_ratio, bdi_pos_ratio);
+	}
 
 	/*
 	 * We have computed basic pos_ratio above based on global situation. If
@@ -994,6 +1079,27 @@ static void bdi_update_dirty_ratelimit(struct backing_dev_info *bdi,
 	 * keep that period small to reduce time lags).
 	 */
 	step = 0;
+
+	/*
+	 * For strictlimit case, calculations above were based on bdi counters
+	 * and limits (starting from pos_ratio = bdi_position_ratio() and up to
+	 * balanced_dirty_ratelimit = task_ratelimit * write_bw / dirty_rate).
+	 * Hence, to calculate "step" properly, we have to use bdi_dirty as
+	 * "dirty" and bdi_setpoint as "setpoint".
+	 *
+	 * We rampup dirty_ratelimit forcibly if bdi_dirty is low because
+	 * it's possible that bdi_thresh is close to zero due to inactivity
+	 * of backing device (see the implementation of bdi_dirty_limit()).
+	 */
+	if (unlikely(bdi->capabilities & BDI_CAP_STRICTLIMIT)) {
+		dirty = bdi_dirty;
+		if (bdi_dirty < 8)
+			setpoint = bdi_dirty + 1;
+		else
+			setpoint = (bdi_thresh +
+				    bdi_dirty_limit(bdi, bg_thresh)) / 2;
+	}
+
 	if (dirty < setpoint) {
 		x = min(bdi->balanced_dirty_ratelimit,
 			 min(balanced_dirty_ratelimit, task_ratelimit));
@@ -1198,6 +1304,56 @@ static long bdi_min_pause(struct backing_dev_info *bdi,
 	return pages >= DIRTY_POLL_THRESH ? 1 + t / 2 : t;
 }
 
+static inline void bdi_dirty_limits(struct backing_dev_info *bdi,
+				    unsigned long dirty_thresh,
+				    unsigned long background_thresh,
+				    unsigned long *bdi_dirty,
+				    unsigned long *bdi_thresh,
+				    unsigned long *bdi_bg_thresh)
+{
+	unsigned long bdi_reclaimable;
+
+	/*
+	 * bdi_thresh is not treated as some limiting factor as
+	 * dirty_thresh, due to reasons
+	 * - in JBOD setup, bdi_thresh can fluctuate a lot
+	 * - in a system with HDD and USB key, the USB key may somehow
+	 *   go into state (bdi_dirty >> bdi_thresh) either because
+	 *   bdi_dirty starts high, or because bdi_thresh drops low.
+	 *   In this case we don't want to hard throttle the USB key
+	 *   dirtiers for 100 seconds until bdi_dirty drops under
+	 *   bdi_thresh. Instead the auxiliary bdi control line in
+	 *   bdi_position_ratio() will let the dirtier task progress
+	 *   at some rate <= (write_bw / 2) for bringing down bdi_dirty.
+	 */
+	*bdi_thresh = bdi_dirty_limit(bdi, dirty_thresh);
+
+	if (bdi_bg_thresh)
+		*bdi_bg_thresh = div_u64((u64)*bdi_thresh *
+					 background_thresh,
+					 dirty_thresh);
+
+	/*
+	 * In order to avoid the stacked BDI deadlock we need
+	 * to ensure we accurately count the 'dirty' pages when
+	 * the threshold is low.
+	 *
+	 * Otherwise it would be possible to get thresh+n pages
+	 * reported dirty, even though there are thresh-m pages
+	 * actually dirty; with m+n sitting in the percpu
+	 * deltas.
+	 */
+	if (*bdi_thresh < 2 * bdi_stat_error(bdi)) {
+		bdi_reclaimable = bdi_stat_sum(bdi, BDI_RECLAIMABLE);
+		*bdi_dirty = bdi_reclaimable +
+			bdi_stat_sum(bdi, BDI_WRITEBACK);
+	} else {
+		bdi_reclaimable = bdi_stat(bdi, BDI_RECLAIMABLE);
+		*bdi_dirty = bdi_reclaimable +
+			bdi_stat(bdi, BDI_WRITEBACK);
+	}
+}
+
 /*
  * balance_dirty_pages() must be called by processes which are generating dirty
  * data.  It looks at the number of dirty pages in the machine and will force
@@ -1209,13 +1365,9 @@ static void balance_dirty_pages(struct address_space *mapping,
 				unsigned long pages_dirtied)
 {
 	unsigned long nr_reclaimable;	/* = file_dirty + unstable_nfs */
-	unsigned long bdi_reclaimable;
 	unsigned long nr_dirty;  /* = file_dirty + writeback + unstable_nfs */
-	unsigned long bdi_dirty;
-	unsigned long freerun;
 	unsigned long background_thresh;
 	unsigned long dirty_thresh;
-	unsigned long bdi_thresh;
 	long period;
 	long pause;
 	long max_pause;
@@ -1226,10 +1378,16 @@ static void balance_dirty_pages(struct address_space *mapping,
 	unsigned long dirty_ratelimit;
 	unsigned long pos_ratio;
 	struct backing_dev_info *bdi = mapping->backing_dev_info;
+	bool strictlimit = bdi->capabilities & BDI_CAP_STRICTLIMIT;
 	unsigned long start_time = jiffies;
 
 	for (;;) {
 		unsigned long now = jiffies;
+		unsigned long uninitialized_var(bdi_thresh);
+		unsigned long thresh;
+		unsigned long uninitialized_var(bdi_dirty);
+		unsigned long dirty;
+		unsigned long bg_thresh;
 
 		/*
 		 * Unstable writes are a feature of certain networked
@@ -1243,61 +1401,44 @@ static void balance_dirty_pages(struct address_space *mapping,
 
 		global_dirty_limits(&background_thresh, &dirty_thresh);
 
+		if (unlikely(strictlimit)) {
+			bdi_dirty_limits(bdi, dirty_thresh, background_thresh,
+					 &bdi_dirty, &bdi_thresh, &bg_thresh);
+
+			dirty = bdi_dirty;
+			thresh = bdi_thresh;
+		} else {
+			dirty = nr_dirty;
+			thresh = dirty_thresh;
+			bg_thresh = background_thresh;
+		}
+
 		/*
 		 * Throttle it only when the background writeback cannot
 		 * catch-up. This avoids (excessively) small writeouts
-		 * when the bdi limits are ramping up.
+		 * when the bdi limits are ramping up in case of !strictlimit.
+		 *
+		 * In strictlimit case make decision based on the bdi counters
+		 * and limits. Small writeouts when the bdi limits are ramping
+		 * up are the price we consciously pay for strictlimit-ing.
 		 */
-		freerun = dirty_freerun_ceiling(dirty_thresh,
+		if (dirty <= dirty_freerun_ceiling(thresh, bg_thresh)) {
-						background_thresh);
-		if (nr_dirty <= freerun) {
 			current->dirty_paused_when = now;
 			current->nr_dirtied = 0;
 			current->nr_dirtied_pause =
-				dirty_poll_interval(nr_dirty, dirty_thresh);
+				dirty_poll_interval(dirty, thresh);
 			break;
 		}
 
 		if (unlikely(!writeback_in_progress(bdi)))
 			bdi_start_background_writeback(bdi);
 
-		/*
+		if (!strictlimit)
-		 * bdi_thresh is not treated as some limiting factor as
+			bdi_dirty_limits(bdi, dirty_thresh, background_thresh,
-		 * dirty_thresh, due to reasons
+					 &bdi_dirty, &bdi_thresh, NULL);
-		 * - in JBOD setup, bdi_thresh can fluctuate a lot
-		 * - in a system with HDD and USB key, the USB key may somehow
-		 *   go into state (bdi_dirty >> bdi_thresh) either because
-		 *   bdi_dirty starts high, or because bdi_thresh drops low.
-		 *   In this case we don't want to hard throttle the USB key
-		 *   dirtiers for 100 seconds until bdi_dirty drops under
-		 *   bdi_thresh. Instead the auxiliary bdi control line in
-		 *   bdi_position_ratio() will let the dirtier task progress
-		 *   at some rate <= (write_bw / 2) for bringing down bdi_dirty.
-		 */
-		bdi_thresh = bdi_dirty_limit(bdi, dirty_thresh);
-
-		/*
-		 * In order to avoid the stacked BDI deadlock we need
-		 * to ensure we accurately count the 'dirty' pages when
-		 * the threshold is low.
-		 *
-		 * Otherwise it would be possible to get thresh+n pages
-		 * reported dirty, even though there are thresh-m pages
-		 * actually dirty; with m+n sitting in the percpu
-		 * deltas.
-		 */
-		if (bdi_thresh < 2 * bdi_stat_error(bdi)) {
-			bdi_reclaimable = bdi_stat_sum(bdi, BDI_RECLAIMABLE);
-			bdi_dirty = bdi_reclaimable +
-				    bdi_stat_sum(bdi, BDI_WRITEBACK);
-		} else {
-			bdi_reclaimable = bdi_stat(bdi, BDI_RECLAIMABLE);
-			bdi_dirty = bdi_reclaimable +
-				    bdi_stat(bdi, BDI_WRITEBACK);
-		}
 
 		dirty_exceeded = (bdi_dirty > bdi_thresh) &&
-				  (nr_dirty > dirty_thresh);
+				 ((nr_dirty > dirty_thresh) || strictlimit);
 		if (dirty_exceeded && !bdi->dirty_exceeded)
 			bdi->dirty_exceeded = 1;