[PATCH v8 21/22] rv: Add documentation for rtapp monitor

Nam Cao
2025-05-12T10:51:23Z

Add documentation describing the rtapp monitor.

Reviewed-by: Gabriele Monaco <gmonaco@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Nam Cao <namcao@linutronix.de>
---
Documentation/trace/rv/index.rst | 1 +
Documentation/trace/rv/monitor_rtapp.rst | 116 +++++++++++++++++++++++
2 files changed, 117 insertions(+)
create mode 100644 Documentation/trace/rv/monitor_rtapp.rst

diff --git a/Documentation/trace/rv/index.rst b/Documentation/trace/rv/index.rst
index 2a27f6bc9429..a2812ac5cfeb 100644
--- a/Documentation/trace/rv/index.rst
+++ b/Documentation/trace/rv/index.rst
@@ -14,3 +14,4 @@ Runtime Verification
monitor_wip.rst
monitor_wwnr.rst
monitor_sched.rst
+ monitor_rtapp.rst
diff --git a/Documentation/trace/rv/monitor_rtapp.rst b/Documentation/trace/rv/monitor_rtapp.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..fb0ca0bf33a1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/trace/rv/monitor_rtapp.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,116 @@
+Real-time application monitors
+==============================
+
+- Name: rtapp
+- Type: container for multiple monitors
+- Author: Nam Cao <namcao@linutronix.de>
+
+Description
+-----------
+
+Real-time applications may have design flaws such that they experience unexpected latency and fail
+to meet their time requirements. Often, these flaws follow a few patterns:
+
+ - Page faults: A real-time thread may access memory that does not have a mapped physical backing
+ or must first be copied (such as for copy-on-write). Thus a page fault is raised and the kernel
+ must first perform the expensive action. This causes significant delays to the real-time thread
+ - Priority inversion: A real-time thread blocks waiting for a lower-priority thread. This causes
+ the real-time thread to effectively take on the scheduling priority of the lower-priority
+ thread. For example, the real-time thread needs to access a shared resource that is protected by
+ a non-pi-mutex, but the mutex is currently owned by a non-real-time thread.
+
+The `rtapp` monitor detects these patterns. It aids developers to identify reasons for unexpected
+latency with real-time applications. It is a container of multiple sub-monitors described in the
+following sections.
+
+Monitor pagefault
++++++++++++++++++
+
+The `pagefault` monitor reports real-time tasks raising page faults. Its specification is::
+
+ RULE = always (RT imply not PAGEFAULT)
+
+To fix warnings reported by this monitor, `mlockall()` or `mlock()` can be used to ensure physical
+backing for memory.
+
+This monitor may have false negatives because the pages used by the real-time threads may just
+happen to be directly available during testing. To minimize this, the system can be put under memory
+pressure (e.g. invoking the OOM killer using a program that does `ptr = malloc(SIZE_OF_RAM);
+memset(ptr, 0, SIZE_OF_RAM);`) so that the kernel executes aggressive strategies to recycle as much
+physical memory as possible.
+
+Monitor sleep
++++++++++++++
+
+The `sleep` monitor reports real-time threads sleeping in a manner that may cause undesirable
+latency. Real-time applications should only put a real-time thread to sleep for one of the following
+reasons:
+
+ - Cyclic work: real-time thread sleeps waiting for the next cycle. For this case, only the
+ `clock_nanosleep` syscall should be used with `TIMER_ABSTIME` (to avoid time drift) and
+ `CLOCK_MONOTONIC` (to avoid the clock being changed). No other method is safe for real-time. For
+ example, threads waiting for timerfd can be woken by softirq which provides no real-time
+ guarantee.
+ - Real-time thread waiting for something to happen (e.g. another thread releasing shared
+ resources, or a completion signal from another thread). In this case, only futexes
+ (FUTEX_LOCK_PI, FUTEX_LOCK_PI2 or one of FUTEX_WAIT_*) should be used. Applications usually do
+ not use futexes directly, but use PI mutexes and PI condition variables which are built on top
+ of futexes. Be aware that the C library might not implement conditional variables as safe for
+ real-time. As an alternative, the librtpi library exists to provide a conditional variable
+ implementation that is correct for real-time applications in Linux.
+
+Beside the reason for sleeping, the eventual waker should also be real-time-safe. Namely, one of:
+
+ - An equal-or-higher-priority thread
+ - Hard interrupt handler
+ - Non-maskable interrupt handler
+
+This monitor's warning usually means one of the following:
+
+ - Real-time thread is blocked by a non-real-time thread (e.g. due to contention on a mutex without
+ priority inheritance). This is priority inversion.
+ - Time-critical work waits for something which is not safe for real-time (e.g. timerfd).
+ - The work executed by the real-time thread does not need to run at real-time priority at all.
+ This is not a problem for the real-time thread itself, but it is potentially taking the CPU away
+ from other important real-time work.
+
+Application developers may purposely choose to have their real-time application sleep in a way that
+is not safe for real-time. It is debatable whether that is a problem. Application developers must
+analyze the warnings to make a proper assessment.
+
+The monitor's specification is::
+
+ RULE = always ((RT and SLEEP) imply (RT_FRIENDLY_SLEEP or ALLOWLIST))
+
+ RT_FRIENDLY_SLEEP = (RT_VALID_SLEEP_REASON or KERNEL_THREAD)
+ and ((not WAKE) until RT_FRIENDLY_WAKE)
+
+ RT_VALID_SLEEP_REASON = FUTEX_WAIT
+ or RT_FRIENDLY_NANOSLEEP
+
+ RT_FRIENDLY_NANOSLEEP = CLOCK_NANOSLEEP
+ and NANOSLEEP_TIMER_ABSTIME
+ and NANOSLEEP_CLOCK_MONOTONIC
+
+ RT_FRIENDLY_WAKE = WOKEN_BY_EQUAL_OR_HIGHER_PRIO
+ or WOKEN_BY_HARDIRQ
+ or WOKEN_BY_NMI
+ or KTHREAD_SHOULD_STOP
+
+ ALLOWLIST = BLOCK_ON_RT_MUTEX
+ or FUTEX_LOCK_PI
+ or TASK_IS_RCU
+ or TASK_IS_MIGRATION
+
+Beside the scenarios described above, this specification also handle some special cases:
+
+ - `KERNEL_THREAD`: kernel tasks do not have any pattern that can be recognized as valid real-time
+ sleeping reasons. Therefore sleeping reason is not checked for kernel tasks.
+ - `KTHREAD_SHOULD_STOP`: a non-real-time thread may stop a real-time kernel thread by waking it
+ and waiting for it to exit (`kthread_stop()`). This wakeup is safe for real-time.
+ - `ALLOWLIST`: to handle known false positives with the kernel.
+ - `BLOCK_ON_RT_MUTEX` is included in the allowlist due to its implementation. In the release path
+ of rt_mutex, a boosted task is de-boosted before waking the rt_mutex's waiter. Consequently, the
+ monitor may see a real-time-unsafe wakeup (e.g. non-real-time task waking real-time task). This
+ is actually real-time-safe because preemption is disabled for the duration.
+ - `FUTEX_LOCK_PI` is included in the allowlist for the same reason as `BLOCK_ON_RT_MUTEX`.
--
2.39.5