Re: [RFC 2/3] rcu: Simplify rcu_note_context_switch exit from critical section

["Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@linux.ibm.com>]

On Mon, Jul 01, 2019 at 12:04:14AM -0400, Joel Fernandes (Google) wrote:
> The rcu_preempt_note_context_switch() tries to handle cases where
> __rcu_read_unlock() got preempted and then the context switch path does
> the reporting of the quiscent state along with clearing any bits in the
> rcu_read_unlock_special union.
> 
> This can be handled by just calling rcu_deferred_qs() which was added
> during the RCU consolidation work and already does these checks.
> 
> Tested RCU config TREE03 for an hour which succeeds.
> 
> Cc: rcu@vger.kernel.org
> Cc: kernel-team@android.com
> Signed-off-by: Joel Fernandes (Google) <joel@joelfernandes.org>

My first reaction was "that cannot possibly work", but after a bit of
digging, it really does appear to work just fine.  I therefore expanded
the commit log a bit, so please check it to catch any messups on my part.

Very cool, thank you very much!  ;-)

							Thanx, Paul

------------------------------------------------------------------------

commit ce547cb41ed7662f70d0b07d4c7f7555ba130c61
Author: Joel Fernandes (Google) <joel@joelfernandes.org>
Date:   Mon Jul 1 00:04:14 2019 -0400

    rcu: Simplify rcu_note_context_switch exit from critical section
    
    Because __rcu_read_unlock() can be preempted just before the call to
    rcu_read_unlock_special(), it is possible for a task to be preempted just
    before it would have fully exited its RCU read-side critical section.
    This would result in a needless extension of that critical section until
    that task was resumed, which might in turn result in a needlessly
    long grace period, needless RCU priority boosting, and needless
    force-quiescent-state actions.  Therefore, rcu_note_context_switch()
    invokes __rcu_read_unlock() followed by rcu_preempt_deferred_qs() when
    it detects this situation.  This action by rcu_note_context_switch()
    ends the RCU read-side critical section immediately.
    
    Of course, once the task resumes, it will invoke rcu_read_unlock_special()
    redundantly.  This is harmless because the fact that a preemption
    happened means that interrupts, preemption, and softirqs cannot
    have been disabled, so there would be no deferred quiescent state.
    While ->rcu_read_lock_nesting remains less than zero, none of the
    ->rcu_read_unlock_special.b bits can be set, and they were all zeroed by
    the call to rcu_note_context_switch() at task-preemption time.  Therefore,
    setting ->rcu_read_unlock_special.b.exp_hint to false has no effect.
    
    Therefore, the extra call to rcu_preempt_deferred_qs_irqrestore()
    would return immediately.  With one possible exception, which is
    if an expedited grace period started just as the task was being
    resumed, which could leave ->exp_deferred_qs set.  This will cause
    rcu_preempt_deferred_qs_irqrestore() to invoke rcu_report_exp_rdp(),
    reporting the quiescent state, just as it should.  (Such an expedited
    grace period won't affect the preemption code path due to interrupts
    having already been disabled.)
    
    But when rcu_note_context_switch() invokes __rcu_read_unlock(), it
    is doing so with preemption disabled, hence __rcu_read_unlock() will
    unconditionally defer the quiescent state, only to immediately invoke
    rcu_preempt_deferred_qs(), thus immediately reporting the deferred
    quiescent state.  It turns out to be safe (and faster) to instead
    just invoke rcu_preempt_deferred_qs() without the __rcu_read_unlock()
    middleman.
    
    Because this is the invocation during the preemption (as opposed to
    the invocation just after the resume), at least one of the bits in
    ->rcu_read_unlock_special.b must be set and ->rcu_read_lock_nesting
    must be negative.  This means that rcu_preempt_need_deferred_qs() must
    return true, avoiding the early exit from rcu_preempt_deferred_qs().
    Thus, rcu_preempt_deferred_qs_irqrestore() will be invoked immediately,
    as required.
    
    This commit therefore simplifies the CONFIG_PREEMPT=y version of
    rcu_note_context_switch() by removing the "else if" branch of its
    "if" statement.  This change means that all callers that would have
    invoked rcu_read_unlock_special() followed by rcu_preempt_deferred_qs()
    will now simply invoke rcu_preempt_deferred_qs(), thus avoiding the
    rcu_read_unlock_special() middleman when __rcu_read_unlock() is preempted.
    
    Cc: rcu@vger.kernel.org
    Cc: kernel-team@android.com
    Signed-off-by: Joel Fernandes (Google) <joel@joelfernandes.org>
    Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.ibm.com>

diff --git a/kernel/rcu/tree_plugin.h b/kernel/rcu/tree_plugin.h
index 187dc076c497..214e4689c29d 100644
--- a/kernel/rcu/tree_plugin.h
+++ b/kernel/rcu/tree_plugin.h
@@ -313,15 +313,6 @@ void rcu_note_context_switch(bool preempt)
 				       ? rnp->gp_seq
 				       : rcu_seq_snap(&rnp->gp_seq));
 		rcu_preempt_ctxt_queue(rnp, rdp);
-	} else if (t->rcu_read_lock_nesting < 0 &&
-		   t->rcu_read_unlock_special.s) {
-
-		/*
-		 * Complete exit from RCU read-side critical section on
-		 * behalf of preempted instance of __rcu_read_unlock().
-		 */
-		rcu_read_unlock_special(t);
-		rcu_preempt_deferred_qs(t);
 	} else {
 		rcu_preempt_deferred_qs(t);
 	}