From: Usama Arif <usama.arif@linux.dev>
To: anna-maria@linutronix.de, frederic@kernel.org,
linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, tglx@kernel.org, d@ilvokhin.com,
shakeel.butt@linux.dev, hannes@cmpxchg.org, riel@surriel.com,
kernel-team@meta.com
Cc: Usama Arif <usama.arif@linux.dev>
Subject: [PATCH] hrtimers: skip cpu_base->lock in hrtimer_get_next_event() when hres_active
Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2026 08:38:00 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260707153800.542394-1-usama.arif@linux.dev> (raw)
hrtimer_get_next_event() runs on every tick-stop decision via
get_next_timer_interrupt() -> cmp_next_hrtimer_event(). When high
resolution timers are active it must return KTIME_MAX -- the caller
documents and depends on this.
Yet the current body takes cpu_base->lock, checks hres_active, and
returns KTIME_MAX anyway. On any modern kernel HRES is on continuously
after boot, so the lock acquisition is pure overhead on every
idle-decision path.
On a 176-thread AMD EPYC 9D64 running a Meta production workload, bucketing
callers of native_queued_spin_lock_slowpath by the _raw_spin_lock*, the
slowpath had 199 samples total in total, of which 54 are attributed to
hrtimer_get_next_event+0x2b (the guard() lock take), i.e. this lock take
accounts for ~27% of irqsave slowpath hits on this specific workload.
cpu_base->hres_active is only written by the local CPU
(hrtimer_switch_to_hres() from hardirq context, hrtimers_cpu_starting()
during bring-up). All callers of hrtimer_get_next_event() reach it
from the tick-stop / cpuidle paths with interrupts disabled on that
CPU (__get_next_timer_interrupt() itself takes base_local->lock with
raw_spin_lock(), not raw_spin_lock_irqsave()). No writer can therefore
race with the read, so an unlocked hres_active check is stable and the
lock can be skipped in the common case.
Signed-off-by: Usama Arif <usama.arif@linux.dev>
---
kernel/time/hrtimer.c | 16 +++++++++++-----
1 file changed, 11 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
diff --git a/kernel/time/hrtimer.c b/kernel/time/hrtimer.c
index 313dcea127fe..5be2cb035b86 100644
--- a/kernel/time/hrtimer.c
+++ b/kernel/time/hrtimer.c
@@ -1786,13 +1786,19 @@ EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(__hrtimer_get_remaining);
ktime_t hrtimer_get_next_event(void)
{
struct hrtimer_cpu_base *cpu_base = this_cpu_ptr(&hrtimer_bases);
- ktime_t expires = KTIME_MAX;
- guard(raw_spinlock_irqsave)(&cpu_base->lock);
- if (!hrtimer_hres_active(cpu_base))
- expires = __hrtimer_get_next_event(cpu_base, HRTIMER_ACTIVE_ALL);
+ /*
+ * When HRES is active the caller (cmp_next_hrtimer_event()) expects
+ * KTIME_MAX. cpu_base->hres_active is written only by the local CPU
+ * (hrtimer_switch_to_hres() from hardirq, hrtimers_cpu_starting()
+ * during bring-up), and all callers reach this with IRQs disabled on
+ * the same CPU, so an unlocked read is stable across the lock below.
+ */
+ if (hrtimer_hres_active(cpu_base))
+ return KTIME_MAX;
- return expires;
+ guard(raw_spinlock_irqsave)(&cpu_base->lock);
+ return __hrtimer_get_next_event(cpu_base, HRTIMER_ACTIVE_ALL);
}
/**
--
2.53.0-Meta
next reply other threads:[~2026-07-07 15:38 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 2+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-07-07 15:38 Usama Arif [this message]
2026-07-07 21:32 ` [tip: timers/core] hrtimer: Don't take cpu_base::lock in hrtimer_get_next_event() when hres_active tip-bot2 for Usama Arif
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