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Date:      Wed, 11 May 2022 12:52:28 -0700
From:      Mark Millard <marklmi@yahoo.com>
To:        Jan Mikkelsen <janm@transactionware.com>, Pete Wright <pete@nomadlogic.org>
Cc:        freebsd-current <freebsd-current@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: Chasing OOM Issues - good sysctl metrics to use?
Message-ID:  <0E44A609-A040-4801-B3FA-E0B410F0C3D3@yahoo.com>
In-Reply-To: <A3D29E7A-62C1-492F-9631-06437C17B264@yahoo.com>
References:  <83A713B9-A973-4C97-ACD6-830DF6A50B76.ref@yahoo.com> <83A713B9-A973-4C97-ACD6-830DF6A50B76@yahoo.com> <a5b2e248-3298-80e3-4bb6-742c8431f064@nomadlogic.org> <94B2E2FD-2371-4FEA-8E01-F37103F63CC0@yahoo.com> <0fcb5a4a-5517-e57b-2b69-4f3b3b10589a@nomadlogic.org> <DD98C932-A07F-4097-AE7F-D9CEF0BB6AEE@yahoo.com> <f43d7276-3718-df89-cbf0-5c1ef3d67e77@nomadlogic.org> <f00ccd1f-b6f6-bb00-f0a7-2f760c8953a0@nomadlogic.org> <464ED220-0DE4-4D2F-9DA2-AFD00D8D42B7@yahoo.com> <446d5913-a8c2-7dd0-860b-792fa9fe7c5b@nomadlogic.org> <33B740AA-A431-49CB-9F27-50B8C49734A2@yahoo.com> <3C5C183F-1471-4139-A53C-0B3815CFC25E@yahoo.com> <75C02C8C-6A5E-4E19-AC7D-B5DB704E8F16@transactionware.com> <C992DE63-AE7B-47F7-B679-B76D480AC0B1@yahoo.com> <D429A8ED-011A-4E67-9726-C49937861CCD@yahoo.com> <A3D29E7A-62C1-492F-9631-06437C17B264@yahoo.com>

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On 2022-May-10, at 20:31, Mark Millard <marklmi@yahoo.com> wrote:

> On 2022-May-10, at 17:49, Mark Millard <marklmi@yahoo.com> wrote:
>=20
>> On 2022-May-10, at 11:49, Mark Millard <marklmi@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>=20
>>> On 2022-May-10, at 08:47, Jan Mikkelsen <janm@transactionware.com> =
wrote:
>>>=20
>>>> On 10 May 2022, at 10:01, Mark Millard <marklmi@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>>=20
>>>>> On 2022-Apr-29, at 13:57, Mark Millard <marklmi@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>>=20
>>>>>> On 2022-Apr-29, at 13:41, Pete Wright <pete@nomadlogic.org> =
wrote:
>>>>>>>=20
>>>>>>>> . . .
>>>>>>>=20
>>>>>>> d'oh - went out for lunch and workstation locked up.  i *knew* i =
shouldn't have said anything lol.
>>>>>>=20
>>>>>> Any interesting console messages ( or dmesg -a or =
/var/log/messages )?
>>>>>>=20
>>>>>=20
>>>>> I've been doing some testing of a patch by tijl at FreeBSD.org
>>>>> and have reproduced both hang-ups (ZFS/ARC context) and kills
>>>>> (UFS/noARC and ZFS/ARC) for "was killed: failed to reclaim
>>>>> memory", both with and without the patch. This is with only a
>>>>> tiny fraction of the swap partition(s) enabled being put to
>>>>> use. So far, the testing was deliberately with
>>>>> vm.pageout_oom_seq=3D12 (the default value). My testing has been
>>>>> with main [so: 14].
>>>>>=20
>>>>> But I also learned how to avoid the hang-ups that I got --but
>>>>> it costs making kills more likely/quicker, other things being
>>>>> equal.
>>>>>=20
>>>>> I discovered that the hang-ups that I got were from all the
>>>>> processes that I interact with the system via ending up with
>>>>> the process's kernel threads swapped out and were not being
>>>>> swapped in. (including sshd, so no new ssh connections). In
>>>>> some contexts I only had escaping into the kernel debugger
>>>>> available, not even ^T would work. Other times ^T did work.
>>>>>=20
>>>>> So, when I'm willing to risk kills in order to maintain
>>>>> the ability to interact normally, I now use in
>>>>> /etc/sysctl.conf :
>>>>>=20
>>>>> vm.swap_enabled=3D0
>>>>=20
>>>> I have been looking at an OOM related issue. Ignoring the actual =
leak, the problem leads to a process being killed because the system was =
out of memory. This is fine. After that, however, the system console was =
black with a single block cursor and the console keyboard was =
unresponsive. Caps lock and num lock didn=E2=80=99t toggle their lights =
when pressed.
>>>>=20
>>>> Using an ssh session, the system looked fine. USB events for the =
keyboard being disconnected and reconnected appeared but the keyboard =
stayed unresponsive.
>>>>=20
>>>> Setting vm.swap_enabled=3D0, as you did above, resolved this =
problem. After the process was killed a perfectly normal console =
returned.
>>>>=20
>>>> The interesting thing is that this test system is configured with =
no swap space.
>>>>=20
>>>> This is on 13.1-RC5.
>>>>=20
>>>>> This disables swapping out of process kernel stacks. It
>>>>> is just with that option removedfor gaining free RAM, there
>>>>> fewer options tried before a kill is initiated. It is not a
>>>>> loader-time tunable but is writable, thus the
>>>>> /etc/sysctl.conf placement.
>>>>=20
>>>> Is that really what it does? =46rom a quick look at the code in =
vm/vm_swapout.c, it seems little more complex.
>>>=20
>>> I was going by its description:
>>>=20
>>> # sysctl -d vm.swap_enabled
>>> vm.swap_enabled: Enable entire process swapout
>>>=20
>>> Based on the below, it appears that the description
>>> presumes vm.swap_idle_enabled=3D=3D0 (the default). In
>>> my context vm.swap_idle_enabled=3D=3D0 . Looks like I
>>> should also list:
>>>=20
>>> vm.swap_idle_enabled=3D0
>>>=20
>>> in my /etc/sysctl.conf with a reminder comment that the
>>> pair of =3D0's are required for avoiding the observed
>>> hang-ups.
>>>=20
>>>=20
>>> The  analysis goes like . . .
>>>=20
>>> I see in the code that vm.swap_enabled !=3D0 causes
>>> VM_SWAP_NORMAL :
>>>=20
>>> void
>>> vm_swapout_run(void)
>>> {
>>>=20
>>>      if (vm_swap_enabled)
>>>              vm_req_vmdaemon(VM_SWAP_NORMAL);
>>> }
>>>=20
>>> and that in turn leads to vm_daemon to:
>>>=20
>>>              if (swapout_flags !=3D 0) {
>>>                      /*
>>>                       * Drain the per-CPU page queue batches as a =
deadlock
>>>                       * avoidance measure.
>>>                       */
>>>                      if ((swapout_flags & VM_SWAP_NORMAL) !=3D 0)
>>>                              vm_page_pqbatch_drain();
>>>                      swapout_procs(swapout_flags);
>>>              }
>>>=20
>>> Note: vm.swap_idle_enabled=3D=3D0 && vm.swap_enabled=3D=3D0 ends
>>> up with swapout_flags=3D=3D0. vm.swap_idle. . . defaults seem
>>> to be (in my context):
>>>=20
>>> # sysctl -a | grep swap_idle
>>> vm.swap_idle_threshold2: 10
>>> vm.swap_idle_threshold1: 2
>>> vm.swap_idle_enabled: 0
>>>=20
>>> For reference:
>>>=20
>>> /*
>>> * Idle process swapout -- run once per second when pagedaemons are
>>> * reclaiming pages.
>>> */
>>> void
>>> vm_swapout_run_idle(void)
>>> {
>>>      static long lsec;
>>>=20
>>>      if (!vm_swap_idle_enabled || time_second =3D=3D lsec)
>>>              return;
>>>      vm_req_vmdaemon(VM_SWAP_IDLE);
>>>      lsec =3D time_second;
>>> }
>>>=20
>>> [So vm.swap_idle_enabled=3D=3D0 avoids VM_SWAP_IDLE status.]
>>>=20
>>> static void
>>> vm_req_vmdaemon(int req)
>>> {
>>>      static int lastrun =3D 0;
>>>=20
>>>      mtx_lock(&vm_daemon_mtx);
>>>      vm_pageout_req_swapout |=3D req;
>>>      if ((ticks > (lastrun + hz)) || (ticks < lastrun)) {
>>>              wakeup(&vm_daemon_needed);
>>>              lastrun =3D ticks;
>>>      }
>>>      mtx_unlock(&vm_daemon_mtx);
>>> }
>>>=20
>>> [So VM_SWAP_IDLE and VM_SWAP_NORMAL are independent bits
>>> in vm_pageout_req_swapout.]
>>>=20
>>> vm_deamon does:
>>>=20
>>>              mtx_lock(&vm_daemon_mtx);
>>>              msleep(&vm_daemon_needed, &vm_daemon_mtx, PPAUSE, =
"psleep",
>>>                  vm_daemon_timeout);
>>>              swapout_flags =3D vm_pageout_req_swapout;
>>>              vm_pageout_req_swapout =3D 0;
>>>              mtx_unlock(&vm_daemon_mtx);
>>>=20
>>> So vm_pageout_req_swapout is regenerated after thata
>>> each time.
>>>=20
>>> I'll not show the code for vm.swap_idle_enabled!=3D0 .
>>>=20
>>=20
>> Well, with continued experiments I got an example of
>> a hangup for which looking via the db> prompt did not
>> show any swapping out of process kernel stacks
>> ( vm.swap_enabled=3D0 was the context, so expected ).
>> The environment was ZFS (so with ARC).
>>=20
>> But this was testing with vm.pageout_oom_seq=3D120 instead
>> of the default vm.pageout_oom_seq=3D12 . It may be that
>> let sit long enough things would have unhung (external
>> perspective).
>>=20
>> It is part of what I'm experimenting with so we will see.
>>=20
>=20
> Looks like I might have overreacted, in that for my
> current tests there can be brief periods of delayed
> response, but things respond in a little bit.
> Definately not like the hang-ups I was getting with
> vm.swap_enabled=3D1 .
>=20

The following is based on using vm.pageout_oom_seq=3D120
which greatly delays kills. (I've never waited long
enough.) vm.pageout_oom_seq=3D12 tends to get a kill
fairly quickly, making the below hard to observe.

More testing has shown it can hang up with use of
vm.swap_enabled=3D0 with vm.swap_idle_enabled=3D0 --but
the details I've observed suggest a livelock rather
than a deadlock. It appears that the likes of (db>
use output extractions):

1171  1168  1168     0  R+      CPU 2                       stress
1170  1168  1168     0  R+      CPU 0                       stress
and:
 18     0     0     0  RL      (threaded)                  [pagedaemon]
100120                   Run     CPU 1                       [dom0]
100132                   D       launds  0xffff000000f1dc44  [laundry: =
dom0]
100133                   D       umarcl  0xffff0000007d8424  [uma]

stay busy using power like when I have just those
significantly active and the system is not hung-up.
(30.6W..30.8W or so range, where idle is more like
26W and more general activity being involved ends
up with the power jumping around over a wider
range, for example.)

I have observed non-hung-up tests where the 2 stress
processes using the memory were getting around 99%
in top and and [pagedaemon{dom0}] was getting around 90%
but a grep was getting more like 0.04%. This looks like
a near-livelock and it was what inspired looking if more
suggested a livelock for a hang-up.

Looking via db> use always has looked like the above.
(Sometimes I've used 3 memory-using stress processes but
now usually 2, leaving one CPU typically being idle.)

That in turn lead to monitoring the power, ending up as
mentioned above.

I have also observed hang-up-like cases where the top
that had been running would sometimes get individual
screen updates many minutes apart. With the power usage
pattern it again seems like a (near) livelock.


Relative to avoiding hang-ups, so far it seems that
use of vm.swap_enabled=3D0 with vm.swap_idle_enabled=3D0
makes hang-ups less likely/less frequent/harder to
produce examples of. But is no guarantee of lack of
a hang-up. Its does change the cause of the hang-up
(in that it avoids processes with kernel stacks swapped
out being involved).

What I do to avoid rebooting for a hang-up I'd done
with is to kill the memory using stress processes
via db> use and then c out of the kernel debugger
(i.e., continue). So far the system has always
returned to normal in response.

=3D=3D=3D
Mark Millard
marklmi at yahoo.com




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