Boris Zhmurov has reported RCU stalls during the kswapd reclaim:

  INFO: rcu_sched detected stalls on CPUs/tasks:
   23-...: (22 ticks this GP) idle=92f/140000000000000/0 softirq=2638404/2638404 fqs=23
   (detected by 4, t=6389 jiffies, g=786259, c=786258, q=42115)
  Task dump for CPU 23:
  kswapd1         R  running task        0   148      2 0x00000008
  Call Trace:
    shrink_node+0xd2/0x2f0
    kswapd+0x2cb/0x6a0
    mem_cgroup_shrink_node+0x160/0x160
    kthread+0xbd/0xe0
    __switch_to+0x1fa/0x5c0
    ret_from_fork+0x1f/0x40
    kthread_create_on_node+0x180/0x180

a closer code inspection has shown that we might indeed miss all the
scheduling points in the reclaim path if no pages can be isolated from
the LRU list.  This is a pathological case but other reports from Donald
Buczek have shown that we might indeed hit such a path:

        clusterd-989   [009] .... 118023.654491: mm_vmscan_direct_reclaim_end: nr_reclaimed=193
         kswapd1-86    [001] dN.. 118023.987475: mm_vmscan_lru_isolate: isolate_mode=0 classzone=0 order=0 nr_requested=32 nr_scanned=4239830 nr_taken=0 file=1
         kswapd1-86    [001] dN.. 118024.320968: mm_vmscan_lru_isolate: isolate_mode=0 classzone=0 order=0 nr_requested=32 nr_scanned=4239844 nr_taken=0 file=1
         kswapd1-86    [001] dN.. 118024.654375: mm_vmscan_lru_isolate: isolate_mode=0 classzone=0 order=0 nr_requested=32 nr_scanned=4239858 nr_taken=0 file=1
         kswapd1-86    [001] dN.. 118024.987036: mm_vmscan_lru_isolate: isolate_mode=0 classzone=0 order=0 nr_requested=32 nr_scanned=4239872 nr_taken=0 file=1
         kswapd1-86    [001] dN.. 118025.319651: mm_vmscan_lru_isolate: isolate_mode=0 classzone=0 order=0 nr_requested=32 nr_scanned=4239886 nr_taken=0 file=1
         kswapd1-86    [001] dN.. 118025.652248: mm_vmscan_lru_isolate: isolate_mode=0 classzone=0 order=0 nr_requested=32 nr_scanned=4239900 nr_taken=0 file=1
         kswapd1-86    [001] dN.. 118025.984870: mm_vmscan_lru_isolate: isolate_mode=0 classzone=0 order=0 nr_requested=32 nr_scanned=4239914 nr_taken=0 file=1
  [...]
         kswapd1-86    [001] dN.. 118084.274403: mm_vmscan_lru_isolate: isolate_mode=0 classzone=0 order=0 nr_requested=32 nr_scanned=4241133 nr_taken=0 file=1

this is minute long snapshot which didn't take a single page from the
LRU.  It is not entirely clear why only 1303 pages have been scanned
during that time (maybe there was a heavy IRQ activity interfering).

In any case it looks like we can really hit long periods without
scheduling on non preemptive kernels so an explicit cond_resched() in
shrink_node_memcg which is independent on the reclaim operation is due.

Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20161202095841.16648-1-mhocko@kernel.orgSigned-off-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com>
Reported-by: Boris Zhmurov <bb@kernelpanic.ru>
Tested-by: Boris Zhmurov <bb@kernelpanic.ru>
Reported-by: Donald Buczek <buczek@molgen.mpg.de>
Reported-by: "Christopher S. Aker" <caker@theshore.net>
Reported-by: Paul Menzel <pmenzel@molgen.mpg.de>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>