Re: [PATCH 32/35] clockevents: Fix cpu down race for hrtimer based broadcasting

[Nicolas Pitre]

On Mon, 23 Feb 2015, Peter Zijlstra wrote:

> In any case, having had a second look I think I might have some ideas:
> 
>  - bL_switcher_enable() -- enables the whole switcher thing and
>    disables half the cpus with hot-un-plug, creates a mapping etc..
> 
>  - bL_switcher_disable() -- disabled the whole switcher thing and
>    gives us back all our cpus with hot-plug.
> 
> When the switcher is enabled; we switch by this magic cpu_suspend() call
> that saves the entire cpu state and allows you to restore it on another
> cpu.
> 
> You muck about with the tick; you disable it before cpu_suspend() and
> re-enable it after on the target cpu. You further reprogram the
> interrupt routing from the old to the new cpu.
> 
> But that appears to be it, no more. 

Exact.

> I suppose the tick is special because its the only per-cpu device?

Right.

> The reported function that fails: bL_switcher_restore_cpus() is called
> in the error paths of the former and the main path in the latter to make
> the 'stolen' cpus re-appear.
> 
> The patch in question somehow makes that go boom.
> 
> 
> Now what all do you need to do to make it go boom? Just enable/disable
> the switcher once and it'll explode? Or does it need to do actual
> switches while it is enabled?

It gets automatically enabled during boot.  Then several switches are 
performed while user space is brought up.  If I manually disable it 
via /sys then it goes boom.

> The place where it explodes is a bit surprising, it thinks hrtimers are
> not enabled even though its calling into hrtimer code on that cpu...
> 
> 
> 
> 
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