Re: [PATCH 2/2 v2] rcu,cleanup: simplify the code when cpu is dying

[Lai Jiangshan]

On 10/21/2010 03:25 AM, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 02:13:06PM +0800, Lai Jiangshan wrote:
>> When we handle cpu notify DYING, the whole system is stopped except
>> current CPU, so we can touch any data, and we remove the orphan_cbs_tail
>> and send the callbacks to the dest CPU directly.
> 
> Queued along with the documentation/comment patch below, thank you!!!
> (Of course, please let me know if you see problems with my patch.)

Your patch is good for me, please queue it, thanks.

> 
> One remaining question...  You use cpumask_any() to select the destination
> CPU, which sounds good until you look at its definition.  The problem
> is that cpumask_any() always chooses the lowest-numbered online CPU.
> So imagine a (say) 64-CPU system and suppose that CPU 0 remains online.
> Suppose further that the other 63 CPUs each execute some workload that
> generates lots of RCU callbacks (perhaps creating then removing a large
> source tree), and periodically go offline and come back online.
> 
> All of the RCU callbacks from CPUs 1-63 could easily end up getting
> dumped onto CPU 0's callback lists.  It is easy to imagine that CPU 0
> might not be able to invoke these callbacks as fast as the other CPUs
> could generate them.
> 
> Or am I missing something?


It happens in the worst case. It may also happen before this patch.

Before this patch, the callback move to the receive-CPU who handles the CPU_DEAD
event, and this CPU may be always cpu#0 in the worst case, the problem happens.

And it's not help if I introduce a choose_receive_cpu_very_smart(),
Suppose further that the other 63 CPUs each execute some workload that
generates lots of RCU callbacks (perhaps creating then removing a large
source tree), and periodically go offline and come back online. In worse
case, in some period, there is only cpu#0 online, So all of the RCU callbacks
from CPUs 1-63 could easily end up getting dumped onto CPU 0's callback lists. 
It is easy to imagine that CPU 0 might not be able to invoke these callbacks
as fast as the other CPUs could generate them.

Another bad case(it may happens without this patch/with this patch
/with choose_receive_cpu_very_smart()):
	Live-Lock, suppose cpu#A and cpu#B periodically go offline and come
	back online, the callback may be moved from A to B and from B to A
	periodically, no callback is handled.

To fix these problems(it does really very hardly happen), we must force
all adopted callbacks are called before next cpu-offline. so we can use
work_on_cpu() or rcu_barrier() to do this. To make the code simpler, I will
use rcu_barrier().

Thanks.
Lai
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