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

Paul E. McKenney
2011-09-26T01:41:26Z

On Sun, Sep 25, 2011 at 06:26:11PM -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 03:10:33AM +0200, Frederic Weisbecker wrote:
> > 2011/9/26 Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@gmail.com>:
> > > On Sun, Sep 25, 2011 at 09:48:04AM -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > >> This is required for RCU_FAST_NO_HZ, which checks to see whether the
> > >> current CPU can accelerate the current grace period so as to enter
> > >> dyntick-idle mode sooner than it would otherwise.  This takes effect
> > >> in the situation where rcu_needs_cpu() sees that there are callbacks.
> > >> It then notes a quiescent state (which is illegal in an RCU read-side
> > >> critical section), calls force_quiescent_state(), and so on.  For this
> > >> to work, the current CPU must be in an RCU read-side critical section.
> > >
> > > You mean it must *not* be in an RCU read-side critical section (ie: in a
> > > quiescent state)?
> > >
> > > That assumption at least fails anytime in idle for the RCU
> > > sched flavour given that preemption is disabled in the idle loop.
> > >
> > >> If this cannot be made to work, another option is to call a new RCU
> > >> function in the case where rcu_needs_cpu() returned false, but after
> > >> the RCU read-side critical section has exited.
> > >
> > > You mean when rcu_needs_cpu() returns true (when we have callbacks
> > > enqueued)?
> > >
> > >> This new RCU function
> > >> could then attempt to rearrange RCU so as to allow the CPU to enter
> > >> dyntick-idle mode more quickly.  It is more important for this to
> > >> happen when the CPU is going idle than when it is executing a user
> > >> process.
> > >>
> > >> So, is this doable?
> > >
> > > At least not when we have RCU sched callbacks enqueued, given preemption
> > > is disabled. But that sounds plausible in order to accelerate the switch
> > > to dyntick-idle mode when we only have rcu and/or rcu bh callbacks.
> >
> > But the RCU sched case could be dealt with if we embrace every use of
> > it with rcu_read_lock_sched() and rcu_read_unlock_sched(), or some light
> > version that just increases a local counter that rcu_needs_cpu() could check.
> >
> > It's an easy thing to add: we can ensure preempt is disabled when we call it
> > and we can force rcu_dereference_sched() to depend on it.
>
> Or just check to see if this is the first level of interrupt from the
> idle task after the scheduler is up.

Hmmm... Is it the case that rcu_needs_cpu() gets called from within an
RCU read-side critical section only when called from an interrupt that
interrupted an RCU read-side critical section (keeping in mind that the
idle loop is a quiescent state regardless of preemption)?

If so, I should be able to do the appropriate checks within
rcu_needs_cpu().

The reason I didn't think of this earlier was that I thought that
rcu_needs_cpu() could be invoked from the idle notifier, which is itself
in an RCU read-side critical section.

Thanx, Paul