Re: [rfc] lru_add_drain_all() vs isolation

Peter Zijlstra
2009-09-07T13:53:19Z

On Mon, 2009-09-07 at 15:35 +0200, Oleg Nesterov wrote:
> On 09/07, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, 2009-09-07 at 10:17 +0200, Mike Galbraith wrote:
> >
> > > [ 774.651779] SysRq : Show Blocked State
> > > [ 774.655770] task PC stack pid father
> > > [ 774.655770] evolution.bin D ffff8800bc1575f0 0 7349 6459 0x00000000
> > > [ 774.676008] ffff8800bc3c9d68 0000000000000086 ffff8800015d9340 ffff8800bb91b780
> > > [ 774.676008] 000000000000dd28 ffff8800bc3c9fd8 0000000000013340 0000000000013340
> > > [ 774.676008] 00000000000000fd ffff8800015d9340 ffff8800bc1575f0 ffff8800bc157888
> > > [ 774.676008] Call Trace:
> > > [ 774.676008] [<ffffffff812c4a11>] schedule_timeout+0x2d/0x20c
> > > [ 774.676008] [<ffffffff812c4891>] wait_for_common+0xde/0x155
> > > [ 774.676008] [<ffffffff8103f1cd>] ? default_wake_function+0x0/0x14
> > > [ 774.676008] [<ffffffff810c0e63>] ? lru_add_drain_per_cpu+0x0/0x10
> > > [ 774.676008] [<ffffffff810c0e63>] ? lru_add_drain_per_cpu+0x0/0x10
> > > [ 774.676008] [<ffffffff812c49ab>] wait_for_completion+0x1d/0x1f
> > > [ 774.676008] [<ffffffff8105fdf5>] flush_work+0x7f/0x93
> > > [ 774.676008] [<ffffffff8105f870>] ? wq_barrier_func+0x0/0x14
> > > [ 774.676008] [<ffffffff81060109>] schedule_on_each_cpu+0xb4/0xed
> > > [ 774.676008] [<ffffffff810c0c78>] lru_add_drain_all+0x15/0x17
> > > [ 774.676008] [<ffffffff810d1dbd>] sys_mlock+0x2e/0xde
> > > [ 774.676008] [<ffffffff8100bc1b>] system_call_fastpath+0x16/0x1b
> >
> > FWIW, something like the below (prone to explode since its utterly
> > untested) should (mostly) fix that one case. Something similar needs to
> > be done for pretty much all machine wide workqueue thingies, possibly
> > also flush_workqueue().
>
> Failed to google the previous discussion. Could you please point me?
> What is the problem?

Ah, the general problem is that when we carve up the machine into
partitions using cpusets, we still get machine wide tickles on all cpus
from workqueue stuff like schedule_on_each_cpu() and flush_workqueue(),
even if some cpus don't actually used their workqueue.

So the below limits lru_add_drain() activity to cpus that actually have
pages in their per-cpu lists.

flush_workqueue() could limit itself to cpus that had work queued since
the last flush_workqueue() invocation, etc.

This avoids un-needed disruption of these cpus.

Christoph wants this because he's running cpu-bound userspace and simply
doesn't care to donate a few cycles to the kernel maintenance when not
needed (every tiny bit helps in completing the HPC job sooner).

Mike ran into this because he's starving a partitioned cpu using an RT
task -- which currently starves the other cpus because the workqueues
don't get to run and everybody waits...

The lru_add_drain_all() thing is just one of the many cases, and the
below won't fully solve Mike's problem since the cpu could still have
pending work on the per-cpu list from starting the RT task.. but its
showing the direction on how improve things.

> > +struct sched_work_struct {
> > + struct work_struct work;
> > + work_func_t func;
> > + atomic_t *count;
> > + struct completion *completion;
> > +};
>
> (not that it matters, but perhaps sched_work_struct should have a single
> pointer to the struct which contains func,count,comletion).

Sure, it more-or-less grew while writing, I always forget completions
don't count.

> > -int schedule_on_each_cpu(work_func_t func)
> > +int schedule_on_mask(const struct cpumask *mask, work_func_t func)
>
> Looks like a usefule helper. But,
>
> > + for_each_cpu(cpu, mask) {
> > + struct sched_work_struct *work = per_cpu_ptr(works, cpu);
> > + work->count = &count;
> > + work->completion = &completion;
> > + work->func = func;
> >
> > - INIT_WORK(work, func);
> > - schedule_work_on(cpu, work);
> > + INIT_WORK(&work->work, do_sched_work);
> > + schedule_work_on(cpu, &work->work);
>
> This means the caller must ensure CPU online and can't go away. Otherwise
> we can hang forever.
>
> schedule_on_each_cpu() is fine, it calls us under get_online_cpus().
> But,
>
> > int lru_add_drain_all(void)
> > {
> > - return schedule_on_each_cpu(lru_add_drain_per_cpu);
> > + return schedule_on_mask(lru_drain_mask, lru_add_drain_per_cpu);
> > }
>
> This doesn't look safe.
>
> Looks like, schedule_on_mask() should take get_online_cpus(), do
> cpus_and(mask, mask, online_cpus), then schedule works.
>
> If we don't care the work can migrate to another CPU, schedule_on_mask()
> can do put_online_cpus() before wait_for_completion().

Ah, right. Like said, I only quickly hacked this up as an example on how
to improve isolation between cpus and limit unneeded work in the hope
someone would pick this up and maybe tackle other sites as well.