Re: [RFC PATCH v3 1/9] CPU hotplug: Provide APIs to prevent CPU offlinefrom atomic context

[Srivatsa S. Bhat]

On 12/10/2012 12:44 AM, Oleg Nesterov wrote:
> On 12/07, Srivatsa S. Bhat wrote:
>>
>> Per-cpu counters can help solve the cache-line bouncing problem. So we
>> actually use the best of both: per-cpu counters (no-waiting) at the reader
>> side in the fast-path, and global rwlocks in the slowpath.
>>
>> [ Fastpath = no writer is active; Slowpath = a writer is active ]
>>
>> IOW, the hotplug readers just increment/decrement their per-cpu refcounts
>> when no writer is active.
> 
> Plus LOCK and cli/sti. I do not pretend I really know how bad this is
> performance-wise though. And at first glance this look overcomplicated.
>

Hehe, I agree ;-) But I couldn't think of any other way to get rid of the
deadlock possibilities, other than using global rwlocks. So I designed a
way in which we can switch between per-cpu counters and global rwlocks
dynamically. Probably there is a smarter way to achieve what we want, dunno...
 
> But yes, it is easy to blame somebody else's code ;) And I can't suggest
> something better at least right now. If I understand correctly, we can not
> use, say, synchronize_sched() in _cpu_down() path

We can't sleep in that code.. so that's a no-go.

>, you also want to improve
> the latency. And I guess something like kick_all_cpus_sync() is "too heavy".
> 

I hadn't considered that. Thinking of it, I don't think it would help us..
It won't get rid of the currently running preempt_disable() sections no?

> Also. After the quick reading this doesn't look correct, please see below.
> 
>> +void get_online_cpus_atomic(void)
>> +{
>> +	unsigned int cpu = smp_processor_id();
>> +	unsigned long flags;
>> +
>> +	preempt_disable();
>> +	local_irq_save(flags);
>> +
>> +	if (cpu_hotplug.active_writer == current)
>> +		goto out;
>> +
>> +	smp_rmb(); /* Paired with smp_wmb() in drop_writer_signal() */
>> +
>> +	if (likely(!writer_active(cpu))) {
> 
> WINDOW. Suppose that reader_active() == F.
> 
>> +		mark_reader_fastpath();
>> +		goto out;
> 
> Why take_cpu_down() can't do announce_cpu_offline_begin() + sync_all_readers()
> in between?
> 
> Looks like we should increment the counter first, then check writer_active().

You are right, I missed the above race-conditions.

> And sync_atomic_reader() needs rmb between 2 atomic_read's.
> 

OK.

> 
> Or. Again, suppose that reader_active() == F. But is_new_writer() == T.
> 
>> +	if (is_new_writer(cpu)) {
>> +		/*
>> +		 * ACK the writer's signal only if this is a fresh read-side
>> +		 * critical section, and not just an extension of a running
>> +		 * (nested) read-side critical section.
>> +		 */
>> +		if (!reader_active(cpu)) {
>> +			ack_writer_signal();
> 
> What if take_cpu_down() does announce_cpu_offline_end() right before
> ack_writer_signal() ? In this case get_online_cpus_atomic() returns
> with writer_signal == -1. If nothing else this breaks the next
> raise_writer_signal().
> 

Oh, yes, this one is wrong too! We need to mark ourselves as active
reader right in the beginning. And probably change the check to
"reader_nested()" or something like that.

Thanks a lot Oleg!
Regards,
Srivatsa S. Bhat

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