Re: Considerations on sched APIs under RT patch

Primiano Tucci
2010-04-21T05:16:52Z

Hi steve
> read_locks are converted into "special" rt_mutexes. The only thing
> special about them, is the owner may grab the same read lock more than
> once (recursive).
>
> If a lower priority process currently holds the tasklist_lock for write,
> when a high priority process tries to take it for read (or write for
> that matter) it will block on the lower priority process. But that lower
> priority process will acquire the priority of the higher priority
> process (priority inheritance) and will run at that priority until it
> releases the lock. Then it will go back to its low priority and the
> higher priority process will then preempt it and acquire the lock for
> read.

In your example you implied that the low priority process, holding the
lock for write, runs on the same CPU of the higher priority process
that wants to lock it for read. This is clear to me.
My problem is, in a SMP environment, what happens if a process (let's
say T1 on CPU #1) holds the lock for write (its priority does not
matter, it is not a PI problem) and now a process T0 on cpu #0 wants
to lock it for read?
The process T0 will be blocked! But who will run now on CPU 0, until
the rwlock is held by T1? Probably the next ready process on CPU #'0.
Is it right?

Thanks,
Primiano

--
Primiano Tucci