Re: [PATCH 1/3] sched: add sched_task_call()

Josh Poimboeuf
2015-02-19T23:12:14Z

On Thu, Feb 19, 2015 at 10:26:09PM +0100, Jiri Kosina wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Feb 2015, Josh Poimboeuf wrote:
>
> > How about with a TIF_IN_USERSPACE thread flag? It could be cleared/set
> > right at the border. Then for running tasks it's as simple as:
> >
> > if (test_tsk_thread_flag(task, TIF_IN_USERSPACE))
> > klp_switch_task_universe(task);
>
> That's in principle what CONTEXT_TRACKING is doing, i.e. the condition
> we'd be interested in would be
>
> __this_cpu_read(context_tracking.state) == IN_USER
>
> But it has overhead.

Yeah, that does seem to pretty much do what we want. Unfortunately it
has a much higher overhead than just setting a thread flag.

And from the Kconfig description for CONTEXT_TRACKING_FORCE, which would
enable it on all CPUs during boot, "this option brings an overhead that
you don't want in production."

Maybe that code needs a rewrite to rely on a thread flag instead. Then
we could use it too.

--
Josh