Re: softlockups in multi_cpu_stop

Jason Low
2015-03-07T03:17:14Z

On Sat, 2015-03-07 at 11:08 +0800, Ming Lei wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 7, 2015 at 10:56 AM, Jason Low <jason.low2@hp.com> wrote:
> > On Sat, 2015-03-07 at 10:10 +0800, Ming Lei wrote:
> >> On Sat, Mar 7, 2015 at 10:07 AM, Davidlohr Bueso <dave@stgolabs.net> wrote:
> >> > On Sat, 2015-03-07 at 09:55 +0800, Ming Lei wrote:
> >> >> On Fri, 06 Mar 2015 14:15:37 -0800
> >> >> Davidlohr Bueso <dave@stgolabs.net> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> > On Fri, 2015-03-06 at 13:12 -0800, Jason Low wrote:
> >> >> > > In owner_running() there are 2 conditions that would make it return
> >> >> > > false: if the owner changed or if the owner is not running. However,
> >> >> > > that patch continues spinning if there is a "new owner" but it does not
> >> >> > > take into account that we may want to stop spinning if the owner is not
> >> >> > > running (due to getting rescheduled).
> >> >> >
> >> >> > So you're rationale is that we're missing this need_resched:
> >> >> >
> >> >> > while (owner_running(sem, owner)) {
> >> >> > /* abort spinning when need_resched */
> >> >> > if (need_resched()) {
> >> >> > rcu_read_unlock();
> >> >> > return false;
> >> >> > }
> >> >> > }
> >> >> >
> >> >> > Because the owner_running() would return false, right? Yeah that makes
> >> >> > sense, as missing a resched is a bug, as opposed to our heuristics being
> >> >> > so painfully off.
> >> >> >
> >> >> > Sasha, Ming (Cc'ed), does this address the issues you guys are seeing?
> >> >>
> >> >> For the xfstest lockup, what matters is that the owner isn't running, since
> >> >> the following simple change does fix the issue:
> >> >
> >> > I much prefer Jason's approach, which should also take care of the
> >> > issue, as it includes the !owner->on_cpu stop condition to stop
> >> > spinning.
> >>
> >> But the check on owner->on_cpu should be moved outside the loop
> >> because new owner can be scheduled out too, right?
> >
> > We should keep the owner->on_cpu check inside the loop, otherwise we
> > could continue spinning if the owner is not running.
>
> So how about checking in this way outside the loop for avoiding the spin?
>
> if (owner)
> return owner->on_cpu;

So these owner->on_cpu checks outside of the loop "fixes" the issue as
well, but I don't see the benefit of needing to guess why we break out
of the spin loop (which may make things less readable) and checking
owner->on_cpu duplicate times when one check is enough.