Re: [PATCH 4/4 RFC] RCU: synchronize_sched() without migration

["Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>]

On Wed, Aug 08, 2007 at 12:44:30AM +0530, Dipankar Sarma wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 07, 2007 at 11:52:26AM -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > The combination of CPU hotplug and PREEMPT_RCU has resulted in deadlocks
> > due to the migration-based implementation of synchronize_sched() in -rt.
> > This experimental patch maps synchronize_sched() back onto Classic RCU,
> > eliminating the migration, thus hopefully also eliminating the deadlocks.
> > It is not clear that this is a good long-term approach, but it will at
> > least permit people doing CPU hotplug in -rt kernels additional wiggle
> > room in their design and implementation.
> > 
> > The basic approach is to cause the -rt kernel to incorporate rcuclassic.c
> > as well as rcupreempt.c, but to #ifdef out the conflicting portions of
> > rcuclassic.c so that only the code needed to implement synchronize_sched()
> > remains in a PREEMPT_RT build.  Invocations of grace-period detection
> > from the scheduling-clock interrupt go to rcuclassic.c, which then invokes
> > the corresponding functions in rcupreempt.c (with _rt suffix added to
> > keep the linker happy).  Also applies the RCU_SOFTIRQ to classic RCU.
> > The bulk of this patch just moves code around.
> > 
> > If this patch does turn out to be the right approach, the #ifdefs in
> > kernel/rcuclassic.c might be dealt with.  ;-)
> 
> I think the right thing to do would be to fix cpu hotplug to
> use a simple reference count, as the latest patches Gautham
> is working on. That simplifies the implementation from the
> earlier version with a per-cpu reference counter with RCU.
> No freezer, no lock.

Works for me -- I will just keep this patch for testing of the
CPU hotplug stuff I am adding to preemptible RCU.  Speaking of which,
any advise on good testing methods for CPU hotplug would be greatly
appreciated!!!

						Thanx, Paul