Re: [4.2] commit d59cfc09c32 (sched, cgroup: replace signal_struct->group_rwsem with a global percpu_rwsem) causes regression for libvirt/kvm

[Paul E. McKenney]

On Tue, Sep 15, 2015 at 06:42:19PM +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> 
> 
> On 15/09/2015 15:36, Christian Borntraeger wrote:
> > I am wondering why the old code behaved in such fatal ways. Is there
> > some interaction between waiting for a reschedule in the
> > synchronize_sched writer and some fork code actually waiting for the
> > read side to get the lock together with some rescheduling going on
> > waiting for a lock that fork holds? lockdep does not give me an hints
> > so I have no clue :-(
> 
> It may just be consuming too much CPU usage.  kernel/rcu/tree.c warns
> about it:
> 
>  * if you are using synchronize_sched_expedited() in a loop, please
>  * restructure your code to batch your updates, and then use a single
>  * synchronize_sched() instead.
> 
> and you may remember that in KVM we switched from RCU to SRCU exactly to
> avoid userspace-controlled synchronize_rcu_expedited().
> 
> In fact, I would say that any userspace-controlled call to *_expedited()
> is a bug waiting to happen and a bad idea---because userspace can, with
> little effort, end up calling it in a loop.

Excellent points!

Other options in such situations include the following:

o	Rework so that the code uses call_rcu*() instead of *_expedited().

o	Maintain a per-task or per-CPU counter so that every so many
	*_expedited() invocations instead uses the non-expedited
	counterpart.  (For example, synchronize_rcu instead of
	synchronize_rcu_expedited().)

Note that synchronize_srcu_expedited() is less troublesome than are the
other *_expedited() functions, because synchronize_srcu_expedited() does
not inflict OS jitter on other CPUs.  This situation is being improved,
so that the other *_expedited() functions inflict less OS jitter and
(mostly) avoid inflicting OS jitter on nohz_full CPUs and idle CPUs (the
latter being important for battery-powered systems).  In addition, the
*_expedited() functions avoid hammering CPUs with N-squared OS jitter
in response to concurrent invocation from all CPUs because multiple
concurrent *_expedited() calls will be satisfied by a single expedited
grace-period operation.  Nevertheless, as Paolo points out, it is still
necessary to exercise caution when exposing synchronous grace periods
to userspace control.

							Thanx, Paul

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