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

[Paul Mundt <lethal@linux-sh.org>]

On Tue, Jun 02, 2009 at 10:00:03AM +0200, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> On Tue, 2009-06-02 at 16:54 +0900, Paul Mundt wrote:
> > On Tue, Jun 02, 2009 at 09:41:35AM +0200, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> > > 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.
> > > 
> > A synchronize_rcu() would fix that up, but I think a small window with
> > jiffies is less painful than sorting out RCU ordering and synchronization
> > for a corner case of a corner case ;-)
> > 
> > > > 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 :-)
> > 
> > Ok, that keeps things more simplified then. How does this look?
> 
> 
> Looks fine to me,
> 
> Acked-by: Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@chello.nl>

Thanks for the help!