Request for review (S): 8001049: VM crashes when running with large -Xms and not specifying ObjectAlignmentInBytes

Vladimir Kozlov vladimir.kozlov at oracle.com
Fri Mar 8 10:09:01 PST 2013


I am wondering should we also add a check into Universe::reserve_heap() 
before calling Universe::preferred_heap_base().

Vladimir

On 3/8/13 9:41 AM, harold seigel wrote:
> The change looks good.  Perhaps this problem wasn't seen before because
> this scenario hadn't been tested?
>
> Harold
>
> On 3/8/2013 11:17 AM, Vladimir Kozlov wrote:
>> The change is reasonable.
>>
>> So why we did not see this problem before?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Vladimir
>>
>> On 3/8/13 5:20 AM, Bengt Rutisson wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> Could I have a couple of reviews for this change please?
>>> http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~brutisso/8001049/webrev.00/
>>>
>>> I'm sending this to both the GC and the runtime teams since I think
>>> compressed oops is mixed responsibility for both teams.
>>>
>>> Background (mostly from the bug report):
>>>
>>> Hotspot crashes if it is run with a large initial size:
>>>
>>>  >./java -Xms70g -version
>>> #
>>> # A fatal error has been detected by the Java Runtime Environment:
>>> #
>>> # SIGSEGV (0xb) at pc=0x0000000000000000, pid=14132, tid=140305232803584
>>>
>>> The reason is that we enable UseCompressedOops but we use the default
>>> value for ObjectAlignmentInBytes. With a large heap size we would have
>>> needed to adjust the object alignment to be able to use compressed oops.
>>>
>>> However, after reviewing the code it looks like the fix is not to try to
>>> adjust the object alignment but rather to not enable compressed oops for
>>> large heaps. If someone wants to use compressed oops on a very large
>>> heap they need to explicitly set both UseCompressedOops and
>>> ObjectAlignmentInBytes on the command line. As far as I can tell this is
>>> how it is intended to work.
>>>
>>> Here is the reason for the crash and the rational behind the fix:
>>>
>>> In Arguments::set_ergonomics_flags() we check that the max heap size is
>>> small enough before we enable compressed oops:
>>>
>>>    if (MaxHeapSize <= max_heap_for_compressed_oops()) {
>>> #if !defined(COMPILER1) || defined(TIERED)
>>>      if (FLAG_IS_DEFAULT(UseCompressedOops)) {
>>>        FLAG_SET_ERGO(bool, UseCompressedOops, true);
>>>      }
>>> #endif
>>>
>>> And after that we print a warning message if the heap is too large:
>>>
>>>      if (UseCompressedOops && !FLAG_IS_DEFAULT(UseCompressedOops)) {
>>>        warning("Max heap size too large for Compressed Oops");
>>>        FLAG_SET_DEFAULT(UseCompressedOops, false);
>>>        FLAG_SET_DEFAULT(UseCompressedKlassPointers, false);
>>>      }
>>>
>>> Now the problem is that when we don't set the max heap size on the
>>> command line it will be adjusted based on the initial size (-Xms) and
>>> this happens in Arguments::set_heap_size(), which is called *after*
>>> Arguments::set_ergonomics_flags() has been called. So, when we do the
>>> check against the max size in Arguments::set_ergonomics_flags(), we
>>> check against the default value for the max size. This value fits well
>>> with a compressed heap, so we enable compressed oops and crash later on
>>> when we can't address the upper part of the heap.
>>>
>>> The fix is to move the call to set_heap_size() to *before* the call to
>>> set_ergonomics_flags(). This way the check is done against the correct
>>> value. This has two effects:
>>>
>>> 1) We don't enable UseCompressedOops on heap sizes that are too large
>>> 2) If someone sets -XX:+UseCompressedOops on the command line but
>>> specifies a too large heap a warning message will be logged and
>>> UseCompressedOops will be turned off.
>>>
>>> I am always hesitant to rearrange the order of calls in
>>> Arguments::parse(). But in this case it is necessary to get the correct
>>> behavior and I think it is safe. As far as I can tell there is no other
>>> code between the two methods that try to read the MaxHeapSize value.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Bengt
>


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