Re: [PATCH tip/sched/core] Add comments to aid in safer usage of swake_up.

Boqun Feng
2017-06-16T01:06:21Z

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2211 bytes --]

On Thu, Jun 15, 2017 at 10:56:29AM -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
[...]
> > >
> > > FWLIW, I agree. There was a smb_mb() in RT-linux's equivalent of
> > > swait_activate().
> > >
> > > https://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-rt-users/msg10340.html
> > >
> > > If the barrier goes in swait_active() then we don't have to require all
> > > of the callers of swait_active and swake_up to issue the barrier
> > > instead. Handling this in swait_active is likely to be less error
> > > prone. Though, we could also do something like wq_has_sleeper() and use
> > > that preferentially in swake_up and its variants.
> > >
> >
> > I think it makes more sense that we delete the swait_active() in
> > swake_up()? Because we seems to encourage users to do the quick check on
> > wait queue on their own, so why do the check again in swake_up()?
> > Besides, wake_up() doesn't call waitqueue_activie() outside the lock
> > critical section either.
> >
> > So how about the patch below(Testing is in progress)? Peter?
>
> It is quite possible that a problem I am seeing is caused by this, but
> there are reasons to believe otherwise. And in any case, the problem is
> quite rare, taking tens or perhaps even hundreds of hours of rcutorture
> to reproduce.
>
> So, would you be willing to create a dedicated swait torture test to check
> this out? The usual approach would be to create a circle of kthreads,
> with each waiting on the previous kthread and waking up the next one.
> Each kthread, after being awakened, checks a variable that its waker
> sets just before the wakeup. Have another kthread check for hangs.
>
> Possibly introduce timeouts and random delays to stir things up a bit.
>
> But maybe such a test already exists. Does anyone know of one? I don't
> see anything obvious.
>

Your waketorture patchset[1] seems to be something similar, at least a
good start ;-)

As we don't know which kind of scenario will trigger the problem easily,
I will play around with different ones, and hopefully we can find a way.

Regards,
Boqun

[1]: https://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=146602969518960

> Interested?
>
> Thanx, Paul
>
[...]

[-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 488 bytes --]