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

Paul E. McKenney
2011-09-29T00:55:53Z

On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 01:46:36AM +0200, Frederic Weisbecker wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 11:40:25AM -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 02:31:21PM +0200, Frederic Weisbecker wrote:
> > > On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 11:01:42AM -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > > > On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 02:16:50PM +0200, Frederic Weisbecker wrote:
> >
> > [ . . . ]
> >
> > > > > > But all of this stuff looks to me to be called from the context
> > > > > > of the idle task, so that idle_cpu() will always return "true"...
> > > > >
> > > > > I meant "idle_cpu() && !in_interrupt()" that should return false in
> > > > > rcu_read_lock_sched_held().
> > > >
> > > > The problem is that the idle tasks now seem to make quite a bit of use
> > > > of RCU on entry to and exit from the idle loop itself, for example,
> > > > via tracing. So it seems like it is time to have the idle loop
> > > > explictly tell RCU when the idle extended quiescent state is in effect.
> > > >
> > > > An experimental patch along these lines is included below. Does this
> > > > approach seem reasonable, or am I missing something subtle (or even
> > > > not so subtle) here?
> > > >
> > > > Thanx, Paul
> > > >
> > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > >
> > > > rcu: Explicitly track idle CPUs.
> > > >
> > > > In the good old days, RCU simply checked to see if it was running in
> > > > the context of an idle task to determine whether or not it was in the
> > > > idle extended quiescent state. However, the entry to and exit from
> > > > idle has become more ornate over the years, and some of this processing
> > > > now uses RCU while running in the context of the idle task. It is
> > > > therefore no longer reasonable to assume that anything running in the
> > > > context of one of the idle tasks is in an extended quiscent state.
> > > >
> > > > This commit therefore explicitly tracks whether each CPU is in the
> > > > idle loop, allowing the idle task to use RCU anywhere except in those
> > > > portions of the idle loops where RCU has been explicitly informed that
> > > > it is in a quiescent state.
> > > >
> > > > Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
> > >
> > > I fear we indeed need that now.
> >
> > And we probably need to factor this patch stack. Given the number
> > of warnings and errors due to RCU's confusion about what means "idle",
> > we simply are not bisectable as is.
>
> 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.

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!)

> > > > diff --git a/include/linux/tick.h b/include/linux/tick.h
> > > > index 375e7d8..cd9e2d1 100644
> > > > --- a/include/linux/tick.h
> > > > +++ b/include/linux/tick.h
> > > > @@ -131,8 +131,16 @@ extern ktime_t tick_nohz_get_sleep_length(void);
> > > > extern u64 get_cpu_idle_time_us(int cpu, u64 *last_update_time);
> > > > extern u64 get_cpu_iowait_time_us(int cpu, u64 *last_update_time);
> > > > # else
> > > > -static inline void tick_nohz_idle_enter(bool rcu_ext_qs) { }
> > > > -static inline void tick_nohz_idle_exit(void) { }
> > > > +static inline void tick_nohz_idle_enter(bool rcu_ext_qs)
> > > > +{
> > > > + if (rcu_ext_qs())
> > > > + rcu_idle_enter();
> > > > +}
> > >
> > > rcu_ext_qs is not a function.
> >
> > Ooooh... Good catch. Would you believe that gcc didn't complain?
> > Or maybe my scripts are missing some gcc complaints. But I would
> > expect the following to catch them:
> >
> > egrep -q "Stop|Error|error:|warning:|improperly set"
> >
> > Anything I am missing?
>
> No idea :)
>
> > > 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? ;-)

> > 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.

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.

> 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.

> 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.

> 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.

Thanx, Paul

> > {
> > int cpu = smp_processor_id();
> > struct tick_sched *ts = &per_cpu(tick_cpu_sched, cpu);
> > @@ -559,7 +559,7 @@ void tick_nohz_idle_exit(void)
> >
> > ts->inidle = 0;
> >
> > - if (ts->rcu_ext_qs) {
> > + if (rcu_ext_qs) {
> > rcu_exit_nohz();
> > ts->rcu_ext_qs = 0;
> > }