Re: linux-next-20110923: warning kernel/rcutree.c:1833

Frederic Weisbecker
2011-09-29T12:30:51Z

On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 05:55:45PM -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 01:46:36AM +0200, Frederic Weisbecker wrote:
> > Not sure what you mean. You want to split that specific patch or
> > others?
>
> It looks to me that having my pair of patches on top of yours is
> really ugly. If we are going to introduce the per-CPU idle variable,
> we should make a patch stack that uses that from the start. This allows
> me to bisect to track down the failures I am seeing on Power.

Yeah right. My patches fix the use on extended qs in idle. But if
idle itself is considered as a quiescent state all along, that's about
useless. So it sounds indeed better in that order.

> If you are too busy, I can take this on, but we might get better results
> if you did it. (And I certainly cannot complain about the large amount
> of time and energy that you have put into this -- plus the reduction in
> OS jitter will be really cool to have!)

No problem, I can take it.

> > > > Although idle and rcu/nohz are still close notions, it sounds
> > > > more logical the other way around in the ordering:
> > > >
> > > > tick_nohz_idle_enter() {
> > > > rcu_idle_enter() {
> > > > rcu_enter_nohz();
> > > > }
> > > > }
> > > >
> > > > tick_nohz_irq_exit() {
> > > > rcu_idle_enter() {
> > > > rcu_enter_nohz();
> > > > }
> > > > }
> > > >
> > > > Because rcu ext qs is something used by idle, not the opposite.
>
> Re-reading this makes me realize that I would instead say that idle
> is an example of an RCU extended quiescent state, or that the rcu_ext_qs
> argument to the various functions is used to indicate whether or not
> we are immediately entering/leaving idle from RCU's viewpoint.
>
> So what were you really trying to say here? ;-)

I was thinking about the fact that idle is a caller of rcu_enter_nohz().
And there may be more callers of it in the future. So I thought it may
be better to keep rcu_enter_nohz() idle-agnostic.

But it's fine, there are other ways to call rcu_idle_enter()/rcu_idle_exit()
from the right places other than from rcu_enter/exit_nohz().
We have tick_check_idle() on irq entry and tick_nohz_irq_exit(), both are called
on the first interrupt level in idle.

So I can change that easily for the nohz cpusets.

> > > The problem I have with this is that it is rcu_enter_nohz() that tracks
> > > the irq nesting required to correctly decide whether or not we are going
> > > to really go to idle state. Furthermore, there are cases where we
> > > do enter idle but do not enter nohz, and that has to be handled correctly
> > > as well.
> > >
> > > Now, it is quite possible that I am suffering a senior moment and just
> > > failing to see how to structure this in the design where rcu_idle_enter()
> > > invokes rcu_enter_nohz(), but regardless, I am failing to see how to
> > > structure this so that it works correctly.
> > >
> > > Please feel free to enlighten me!
> >
> > Ah I realize that you want to call rcu_idle_exit() when we enter
> > the first level interrupt and rcu_idle_enter() when we exit it
> > to return to idle loop.
> >
> > But we use that check:
> >
> > if (user ||
> > (rcu_is_cpu_idle() &&
> > !in_softirq() &&
> > hardirq_count() <= (1 << HARDIRQ_SHIFT)))
> > rcu_sched_qs(cpu);
> >
> > So we ensure that by the time we call rcu_check_callbacks(), we are not nesting
> > in another interrupt.
>
> But I would like to enable checks for entering/exiting idle while
> within an RCU read-side critical section. The idea is to move
> the checks from their currently somewhat problematic location in
> rcu_needs_cpu_quick_check() to somewhere more sensible. My current
> thought is to move them rcu_enter_nohz() and rcu_exit_nohz() near the
> calls to rcu_idle_enter() and rcu_idle_exit(), respectively.

So, checking if we are calling rcu_idle_enter() while in an RCU
read side critical section?

But we already have checks that RCU read side API are not called in
extended quiescent state.

> This would mean that they operated only in NO_HZ kernels with lockdep
> enabled, but I am good with that because to do otherwise would require
> adding nesting-level counters to the non-NO_HZ case, which I would like
> to avoid, expecially for TINY_RCU.

There can be a secondary check in rcu_read_lock_held() and friends to
ensures that rcu_is_idle_cpu(). In the non-NO_HZ case it's useful to
find similar issues.

In fact we could remove the check for rcu_extended_qs() in read side
APIs and check instead rcu_is_idle_cpu(). That would work in any
config and not only NO_HZ.

But I hope we can actually keep the check for RCU extended quiescent
state so that when rcu_enter_nohz() is called from other places than
idle, we are ready for it.

I believe it's fine to have both checks in PROVE_RCU.

>
> > That said we found RCU uses after we decrement the hardirq offset and until
> > we reach rcu_irq_exit(). So rcu_check_callbacks() may miss these places
> > and account spurious quiescent states.
> >
> > But between sub_preempt_count() and rcu_irq_exit(), irqs are disabled
> > AFAIK so we can't be interrupted by rcu_check_callbacks(), except during the
> > softirqs processing. But we have that ordering:
> >
> > add_preempt_count(SOTFIRQ_OFFSET)
> > local_irq_enable()
> >
> > do softirqs
> >
> > local_irq_disable()
> > sub_preempt_count(SOTFIRQ_OFFSET)
> >
> > So the !in_softirq() check covers us during the time we process softirqs.
> >
> > The only assumption we need is that there is no place between
> > sub_preempt_count(IRQ_EXIT_OFFSET) and rcu_irq_ext() that has
> > irqs enabled and that is an rcu read side critical section.
> >
> > I'm not aware of any automatic check to ensure that though.
>
> Nor am I, which is why I am looking to the checks in
> rcu_enter_nohz() and rcu_exit_nohz() called out above.

Yep.

> > Anyway, the delta patch looks good.
>
> OK, my current plans are to start forward-porting to -rc8, and I would
> like to have this pair of delta patches or something like them pulled
> into your stack.

Sure I can take your patches (I'm going to merge the delta into the first).
But if you want a rebase against -rc8, it's going to be easier if you
do that rebase on the branch you want me to work on. Then I work on top
of it.

For example we can take your rcu/dynticks, rewind to
"rcu: Make synchronize_sched_expedited() better at work sharing"
771c326f20029a9f30b9a58237c9a5d5ddc1763d, rebase on top of -rc8
and I rebase my patches (yours included) on top of it and I repost.

Right?

> > Just a little thing:
> >
> > > -void tick_nohz_idle_exit(void)
> > > +void tick_nohz_idle_exit(bool rcu_ext_qs)
> >
> > It becomes weird to have both idle_enter/idle_exit having
> > that parameter.
> >
> > Would it make sense to have tick_nohz_idle_[exit|enter]_norcu()
> > and a version without norcu?
>
> Given that we need to make this work in CONFIG_NO_HZ=n kernels, I believe
> that the current API is OK. But if you would like to change the API
> during the forward-port to -rc8, I am also OK with the alternative API
> you suggest.

Fine. I'll do that rename.

Thanks.