Re: [PATCH] rcu: Only pin GP kthread when full dynticks is actually used

[Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@gmail.com>]

On Fri, Jun 13, 2014 at 10:06:06PM -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> One complication...  So if the grace period has gone on for a long time,
> and you are returning to kernel mode, RCU will need the scheduling-clock
> tick.  However, in that very same situation, if you are returning to
> idle or to NO_HZ_FULL userspace execution, RCU does -not- need the
> scheduling-clock tick set.

Right.

> One way I could do this is to have rcu_needs_cpu() return three values:
> Zero for RCU doesn't need a scheduling-clock tick for any reason,
> one if RCU needs a scheduling-clock tick only if returning to kernel
> mode, and two if RCU unconditionally needs the scheduling-clock tick.
> Would that work, or is there a better approach?

For an interrupt, based on the context tracking state, I can check where we
return afterward if we are in an interrupt using context_tracking_in_user().

Now probably rcu_needs_cpu() should check that by itself and, depending
on where we return, only tell if we keep the tick or not.

What do you think?