Re: [PATCH v8 for-xen-4.5 2/2] dpci: Replace tasklet with an softirq (v8)

[Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@oracle.com>]

On Mon, Oct 27, 2014 at 11:24:31AM +0000, Jan Beulich wrote:
> >>> On 27.10.14 at 12:09, <andrew.cooper3@citrix.com> wrote:
> > Can it ever be the case that we are waiting for a remote pcpu to run its
> > softirq handler?  If so, the time spent looping here could be up to 1
> > scheduling timeslice in the worst case, and 30ms is a very long time to
> > wait.
> 
> Good point - I think this can be the case. But there seems to be a
> simple counter measure: The first time we get to this point, send an
> event check IPI to the CPU in question (or in the worst case
> broadcast one if the CPU can't be determined in a race free way).

I can either do this using the wrapper:

     if ( pt_pirq_softirq_active(pirq_dpci) )
     {
         spin_unlock(&d->event_lock);
	 if ( pirq_dpci->cpu >= 0 )
	 {
         	cpu_raise_softirq(pirq_dpci->cpu, HVM_DPCI_SOFTIRQ);
		pirq_dpci->cpu = -1;
	 }
         cpu_relax();
         goto restart;

Ought to do it (cpu_raise_softirq will exit out if
the 'pirq_dpci->cpu == smp_processor_id()'). It also has some batching checks
so that we won't do the IPI if we are in the middle of IPI-ing already
an CPU.

Or just write it out (and bypass some of the checks 'cpu_raise_softirq'
has):

     if ( pt_pirq_softirq_active(pirq_dpci) )
     {
         spin_unlock(&d->event_lock);
	 if ( pirq_dpci->cpu >= 0 && pirq_dpci->cpu != smp_processor_id() )
	 {
		smp_send_event_check_cpu(pirq_dpci->cpu);
		pirq_dpci->cpu = -1;
	 }
         cpu_relax();
         goto restart;


Note:

The 'cpu' is stashed whenever 'raise_softirq_for' has been called.