Re: slab: start_cpu_timer/cache_reap CONFIG_HOTPLUG_CPU problems

[Oleg Nesterov]

On 01/29, Christoph Lameter wrote:
>
> On Mon, 29 Jan 2007, Oleg Nesterov wrote:
> 
> > Now,
> > 	static void __devinit start_cpu_timer(int cpu)
> > 	{
> > 		struct delayed_work *reap_work = &per_cpu(reap_work, cpu);
> > 
> > 		if (keventd_up() && reap_work->work.func == NULL) {
> > 			init_reap_node(cpu);
> > 			INIT_DELAYED_WORK(reap_work, cache_reap);
> > 			schedule_delayed_work_on(cpu, reap_work,
> > 						__round_jiffies_relative(HZ, cpu));
> > 		}
> > 	}
> > 
> > This is wrong. Suppose we have a CPU_UP,CPU_DOWN,CPU_UP sequence. The last
> > CPU_UP will not restart a per-cpu "cache_reap timer".
> 
> Why?

Because the last CPU_UP calls start_cpu_timer(), but since ->work.func != NULL
we don't do schedule_delayed_work_on(). I think (if I am right) this is a slab's
bug.

> > With or without recent changes, it is possible that work->func() will run on
> > another CPU (not that to which it was submitted) if CPU goes down. In fact,
> > this can happen while work->func() is running, so even smp_processor_id()
> > is not safe to use in work->func().
> 
> But the work func was scheduled by schedule_delayed_work_on(). Isnt that a 
> general problem with schedule_delayed_work_on() and keventd?

I think this is yet another problem with workqueues/cpu-hotplug interaction.
Probably, the problem is more general. With CONFIG_CPU_HOTPLUG, we can't
garantee that smp_processor_id() is stable even if the thread is pinned to
specific processor.

> > However, cache_reap() seems to wrongly assume that smp_processor_id() is stable,
> > this is the second problem.
> >
> > Is my understanding correct?
>
> cache_reap assumes that the processor id is stable based on the kevent 
> thread being pinned to a processor.

I think cache_reap() is not alone, and this is not its fault.

But please note another minor problem,

	void cache_reap(struct work_struct *unused)
	{
		...

		schedule_delayed_work(&__get_cpu_var(reap_work), ...);
	}

Even if smp_processor_id() was stable during the execution of cache_reap(),
this work_struct can be moved to another CPU if CPU_DEAD happens. We can't
avoid this, and this is correct.

This means that __get_cpu_var(reap_work) returns a "wrong" struct delayed_work.
This is absolutely harmless right now, but may be it's better to use
container_of(unused, struct delayed_work, work).

Oleg.

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