[PATCH 15/15] sched/cputime: Handle dyntick-idle steal time correctly

Frederic Weisbecker
2026-02-06T14:25:00Z

The dyntick-idle steal time is currently accounted when the tick
restarts but the stolen idle time is not substracted from the idle time
that was already accounted. This is to avoid observing the idle time
going backward as the dyntick-idle cputime accessors can't reliably know
in advance the stolen idle time.

In order to maintain a forward progressing idle cputime while
substracting idle steal time from it, keep track of the previously
accounted idle stolen time and substract it from _later_ idle cputime
accounting.

Signed-off-by: Frederic Weisbecker <frederic@kernel.org>
---
include/linux/kernel_stat.h | 1 +
kernel/sched/cputime.c | 21 +++++++++++++++------
2 files changed, 16 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)

diff --git a/include/linux/kernel_stat.h b/include/linux/kernel_stat.h
index 512104b0ff49..24a54a6151ba 100644
--- a/include/linux/kernel_stat.h
+++ b/include/linux/kernel_stat.h
@@ -39,6 +39,7 @@ struct kernel_cpustat {
bool idle_elapse;
seqcount_t idle_sleeptime_seq;
u64 idle_entrytime;
+ u64 idle_stealtime;
#endif
u64 cpustat[NR_STATS];
};
diff --git a/kernel/sched/cputime.c b/kernel/sched/cputime.c
index 92fa2f037b6e..7e79288eb327 100644
--- a/kernel/sched/cputime.c
+++ b/kernel/sched/cputime.c
@@ -424,19 +424,25 @@ static inline void irqtime_account_process_tick(struct task_struct *p, int user_
static void kcpustat_idle_stop(struct kernel_cpustat *kc, u64 now)
{
u64 *cpustat = kc->cpustat;
- u64 delta;
+ u64 delta, steal, steal_delta;

if (!kc->idle_elapse)
return;

delta = now - kc->idle_entrytime;
+ steal = steal_account_process_time(delta);

write_seqcount_begin(&kc->idle_sleeptime_seq);
+ steal_delta = min_t(u64, kc->idle_stealtime, delta);
+ delta -= steal_delta;
+ kc->idle_stealtime -= steal_delta;
+
if (nr_iowait_cpu(smp_processor_id()) > 0)
cpustat[CPUTIME_IOWAIT] += delta;
else
cpustat[CPUTIME_IDLE] += delta;

+ kc->idle_stealtime += steal;
kc->idle_entrytime = now;
kc->idle_elapse = false;
write_seqcount_end(&kc->idle_sleeptime_seq);
@@ -460,7 +466,6 @@ void kcpustat_dyntick_stop(u64 now)
kc->idle_dyntick = false;
irqtime_dyntick_stop();
vtime_dyntick_stop();
- steal_account_process_time(ULONG_MAX);
}
}

@@ -505,10 +510,14 @@ static u64 kcpustat_field_dyntick(int cpu, enum cpu_usage_stat idx,
do {
seq = read_seqcount_begin(&kc->idle_sleeptime_seq);

- if (kc->idle_elapse && compute_delta)
- idle = cpustat[idx] + (now - kc->idle_entrytime);
- else
- idle = cpustat[idx];
+ idle = cpustat[idx];
+
+ if (kc->idle_elapse && compute_delta) {
+ u64 delta = now - kc->idle_entrytime;
+
+ delta -= min_t(u64, kc->idle_stealtime, delta);
+ idle += delta;
+ }
} while (read_seqcount_retry(&kc->idle_sleeptime_seq, seq));

return idle;
--
2.51.1