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From: paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com (Paul E. McKenney)
To: linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org
Subject: rcu self-detected stall messages on OMAP3, 4 boards
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2012 16:11:22 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20120922231121.GH2934@linux.vnet.ibm.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.2.00.1209222223080.22590@utopia.booyaka.com>

On Sat, Sep 22, 2012 at 10:25:59PM +0000, Paul Walmsley wrote:
> On Sat, 22 Sep 2012, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> 
> > And here is a patch.  I am still having trouble reproducing the problem,
> > but figured that I should avoid serializing things.
> 
> Thanks, testing this now on v3.6-rc6.

Very cool, thank you!

>                                        One question though about the patch 
> description:
> 
> > All this begs the question of exactly how a callback-free grace period
> > gets started in the first place.  This can happen due to the fact that
> > CPUs do not necessarily agree on which grace period is in progress.
> > If a CPU still believes that the grace period that just completed is
> > still ongoing, it will believe that it has callbacks that need to wait
> > for another grace period, never mind the fact that the grace period
> > that they were waiting for just completed.  This CPU can therefore
> > erroneously decide to start a new grace period.
> 
> Doesn't this imply that this bug would only affect multi-CPU systems?  

Surprisingly not, at least when running TREE_RCU or TREE_PREEMPT_RCU.
In order to keep lock contention down to a dull roar on larger systems,
TREE_RCU keeps three sets of books: (1) the global state in the rcu_state
structure, (2) the combining-tree per-node state in the rcu_node
structure, and the per-CPU state in the rcu_data structure.  A CPU is
not officially aware of the end of a grace period until it is reflected
in its rcu_data structure.  This has the perhaps-surprising consequence
that the CPU that detected the end of the old grace period might start
a new one before becoming officially aware that the old one ended.

Why not have the CPU inform itself immediately upon noticing that the
old grace period ended?  Deadlock.  The rcu_node locks must be acquired
from leaf towards root, and the CPU is holding the root rcu_node lock
when it notices that the grace period has ended.

I have made this a bit less problematic in the bigrt branch, working
towards a goal of getting RCU into a state where automatic formal
validation might one day be possible.  And yes, I am starting to get some
formal-validation people interested in this lofty goal, see for example:
http://sites.google.com/site/popl13grace/paper.pdf.

> The recent tests here have been on Pandaboard, which is dual-CPU, but my 
> recollection is that I also observed the warnings on a single-core 
> Beagleboard.  Will re-test.

Anxiously awaiting the results.  This has been a strange one, even by
RCU's standards.

Plus I need to add a few Reported-by lines.  Next version...

							Thanx, Paul

  reply	other threads:[~2012-09-22 23:11 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 45+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2012-09-12 22:51 rcu self-detected stall messages on OMAP3, 4 boards Paul Walmsley
2012-09-13  1:12 ` Paul E. McKenney
2012-09-13 18:52   ` Paul Walmsley
2012-09-20  0:03     ` Paul E. McKenney
2012-09-20  7:56       ` Paul Walmsley
2012-09-20 15:03         ` Bruce, Becky
2012-09-20 21:49         ` Bruce, Becky
2012-09-20 22:01           ` Paul E. McKenney
2012-09-20 22:47             ` Paul Walmsley
2012-09-20 23:21               ` Paul E. McKenney
2012-09-21 18:08                 ` Paul Walmsley
2012-09-21 18:58                   ` Paul E. McKenney
2012-09-21 19:11                     ` Paul Walmsley
2012-09-21 19:57                       ` Paul E. McKenney
2012-09-21 20:31                         ` Tony Lindgren
2012-09-21 22:03                           ` Paul E. McKenney
2012-09-22 15:45                             ` Frederic Weisbecker
2012-09-22 16:00                               ` Paul E. McKenney
2012-09-21 22:12                         ` Paul E. McKenney
2012-09-22 18:42                         ` Paul Walmsley
2012-09-22 20:10                           ` Paul E. McKenney
2012-09-22 21:59                             ` Paul E. McKenney
2012-09-22 22:25                               ` Paul Walmsley
2012-09-22 23:11                                 ` Paul E. McKenney [this message]
2012-09-23  7:55                                   ` Paul Walmsley
2012-09-23 12:11                                     ` Paul E. McKenney
2012-09-23  1:42                                 ` Paul Walmsley
2012-09-23  1:56                                   ` Paul E. McKenney
2012-09-23  2:01                                     ` Paul Walmsley
2012-09-24  9:41                               ` Shilimkar, Santosh
2012-09-24 13:18                                 ` Paul E. McKenney
2012-10-01  8:55                               ` Linus Walleij
2012-10-01 13:28                                 ` Paul E. McKenney
2012-09-21 18:59                   ` Paul Walmsley
2012-09-21 17:47               ` Paul Walmsley
2012-09-21 17:51                 ` Paul Walmsley
2012-09-21 21:20                 ` Paul E. McKenney
2012-09-21 22:41                   ` Paul Walmsley
2012-09-22  0:05                     ` Paul E. McKenney
2012-09-22 18:16                       ` Paul Walmsley
2012-09-22 19:52                         ` Paul E. McKenney
2012-09-22 22:20                           ` Paul Walmsley
2012-09-22 23:17                             ` Paul E. McKenney
2012-09-24 21:54                               ` Paul Walmsley
2012-09-24 22:00                                 ` Paul E. McKenney

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