[merged mm-stable] mm-kmemleak-avoid-soft-lockup-when-scanning-task-stacks.patch removed from -mm tree

Andrew Morton <[email protected]> Tue, 28 Jul 2026 21:13:23 -0700
Newsgroups org.kernel.vger.mm-commits,org.kernel.vger.stable
Message-ID <[email protected]>
The quilt patch titled
     Subject: mm/kmemleak: avoid soft lockup when scanning task stacks
has been removed from the -mm tree.  Its filename was
     mm-kmemleak-avoid-soft-lockup-when-scanning-task-stacks.patch

This patch was dropped because it was merged into the mm-stable branch
of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/akpm/mm

------------------------------------------------------
From: Breno Leitao <[email protected]>
Subject: mm/kmemleak: avoid soft lockup when scanning task stacks
Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2026 10:49:06 -0700

Patch series "mm/kmemleak: avoid soft lockup when scanning task", v3.

kmemleak_scan() scans every task stack under one rcu_read_lock() with no
reschedule point, which can trip the soft lockup watchdog on hosts with
very many threads.

That prints the following message, depending on the workload+host
configuration:

      watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#35 stuck for 22s! [kmemleak:537]
       scan_block
       kmemleak_scan
       kmemleak_scan_thread
       kthread

Patch 1 walks the tasks with find_ge_pid() so the scan reschedules between
tasks

Patches 2-3 let the scan loops stop early once a scan is interrupted.


This patch (of 3):

kmemleak_scan() walks every thread and scans its kernel stack under a
single rcu_read_lock() with no reschedule point.  On a host with very many
threads -- amplified by KASAN/lockdep in debug builds -- this loop can hog
a CPU long enough to trip the soft lockup watchdog:

  watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#35 stuck for 22s! [kmemleak:537]
   scan_block
   kmemleak_scan
   kmemleak_scan_thread
   kthread

A cond_resched() cannot be added directly: the loop runs inside an RCU
read-side critical section.

Walk the tasks one PID at a time with find_ge_pid(), taking the RCU read
lock only to look up and pin each task.  The stack is then scanned with no
lock held, so cond_resched() runs between tasks and the scan stops early
on scan_should_stop().  This follows the next_tgid()/task_seq_get_next()
iteration pattern and keeps each RCU critical section short.

Link: https://lore.kernel.org/[email protected]
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/[email protected]
Fixes: c4b28963fd79 ("mm/kmemleak: rely on rcu for task stack scanning")
Signed-off-by: Breno Leitao <[email protected]>
Reviewed-by: Catalin Marinas <[email protected]>
Reviewed-by: Davidlohr Bueso <[email protected]>
Reviewed-by: Lance Yang <[email protected]>
Reviewed-by: Oleg Nesterov <[email protected]>
Cc: Qian Cai <[email protected]>
Cc: SeongJae Park <[email protected]>
Cc: <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <[email protected]>
---

 mm/kmemleak.c |   51 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-------------
 1 file changed, 38 insertions(+), 13 deletions(-)

--- a/mm/kmemleak.c~mm-kmemleak-avoid-soft-lockup-when-scanning-task-stacks
+++ a/mm/kmemleak.c
@@ -1697,6 +1697,42 @@ unlock_put:
 }
 
 /*
+ * Scan all task kernel stacks, rescheduling between tasks. Each task is looked
+ * up and pinned within its own RCU read-side section, so no lock is held across
+ * the scan and the walk cannot trip the soft lockup watchdog.
+ */
+static void kmemleak_scan_task_stacks(void)
+{
+	struct pid *pid;
+	int nr = 1;
+
+	do {
+		struct task_struct *p = NULL;
+
+		rcu_read_lock();
+		pid = find_ge_pid(nr, &init_pid_ns);
+		if (pid) {
+			nr = pid_nr(pid) + 1;
+			p = pid_task(pid, PIDTYPE_PID);
+			if (p)
+				get_task_struct(p);
+		}
+		rcu_read_unlock();
+
+		if (p) {
+			void *stack = try_get_task_stack(p);
+
+			if (stack) {
+				scan_block(stack, stack + THREAD_SIZE, NULL);
+				put_task_stack(p);
+			}
+			put_task_struct(p);
+		}
+		cond_resched();
+	} while (pid && !scan_should_stop());
+}
+
+/*
  * Print one leak inline. The hex dump is gated on OBJECT_ALLOCATED so it
  * does not touch user memory that was freed concurrently; the rest of the
  * report (backtrace, comm, pid) is always emitted since the kmemleak_object
@@ -1885,19 +1921,8 @@ static void kmemleak_scan(void)
 	/*
 	 * Scanning the task stacks (may introduce false negatives).
 	 */
-	if (kmemleak_stack_scan) {
-		struct task_struct *p, *g;
-
-		rcu_read_lock();
-		for_each_process_thread(g, p) {
-			void *stack = try_get_task_stack(p);
-			if (stack) {
-				scan_block(stack, stack + THREAD_SIZE, NULL);
-				put_task_stack(p);
-			}
-		}
-		rcu_read_unlock();
-	}
+	if (kmemleak_stack_scan)
+		kmemleak_scan_task_stacks();
 
 	/*
 	 * Scan the objects already referenced from the sections scanned
_

Patches currently in -mm which might be from [email protected] are

mm-memory-failure-drop-dead-error_states-entry-for-reserved-pages.patch
mm-memory-failure-surface-unhandlable-kernel-pages-as-enotrecoverable.patch
mm-memory-failure-report-mf_msg_kernel-for-unrecoverable-kernel-pages.patch
mm-memory-failure-add-panic-option-for-unrecoverable-pages.patch
documentation-document-panic_on_unrecoverable_memory_failure-sysctl.patch
radix-tree-fix-kmemleak-false-positives-on-tree-head-reassignment.patch
mm-kmemleak-report-leaks-only-after-n-consecutive-unreferenced-scans.patch
mm-kmemleak-factor-leak-confirmation-into-a-helper.patch
selftests-mm-test-kmemleaks-n-consecutive-scan-leak-confirmation.patch
mm-kmemleak-report-rcu-tasks-quiescent-states-during-the-scan.patch
mm-migrate-report-rcu-tasks-quiescent-states-in-migrate_pages_batch.patch