Re: [PATCH] sched: sched_clock() clocksource handling.

[Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>]

On Tue, 2009-06-02 at 16:35 +0900, Paul Mundt wrote:
> 
> We already do via select_clocksource(), if we are unregistering the
> current one then a new one with the flag set is selected. Before that,
> the override is likewise given preference, and we fall back on jiffies if
> there is nothing else. I suppose we could try and find the "best" one,
> but I think the override and manual clocksource selection should be fine
> for this.

Ah, ok. So unregister calls select_clocksource again? That does leave us
a small window with jiffies, but I guess that's ok.

> Now that you mention it though, the sched_clocksource() assignment within
> select_clocksource() happens underneath the clocksource_lock, but is not
> using rcu_assign_pointer().

Right, that would want fixing indeed.

>  If the assignment there needs to use
> rcu_assign_pointer() then presumably all of the unlock paths that do
> select_clocksource() will have to synchronize_rcu()?

No, you only have to do sync_rcu() when stuff that could have referenced
is going away and you cannot use call_rcu().

So when selecting a new clocksource, you don't need synchonization
because stuff doesn't go away (I think :-)