Re: [PATCH v14 04/14] task_isolation: add initial support

[Frederic Weisbecker]

On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 11:41:36AM -0400, Chris Metcalf wrote:
> On 8/29/2016 8:55 PM, Frederic Weisbecker wrote:
> >On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 10:59:55AM -0400, Chris Metcalf wrote:
> >>On 8/11/2016 2:50 PM, Christoph Lameter wrote:
> >>>On Thu, 11 Aug 2016, Frederic Weisbecker wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>Do we need to quiesce vmstat everytime before entering userspace?
> >>>>I thought that vmstat only need to be offlined once and for all?
> >>>Once is sufficient after disabling the tick.
> >>It's true that task_isolation_enter() is called every time before
> >>returning to user space while task isolation is enabled.
> >>
> >>But once we enter the kernel again after returning from the initial
> >>prctl() -- assuming we are in NOSIG mode so doing so is legal in the
> >>first place -- almost anything can happen, certainly including
> >>restarting the tick.  Thus, we have to make sure that normal quiescing
> >>happens again before we return to userspace.
> >Yes but we need to sort out what needs to be called only once on prctl().
> >
> >Once vmstat is quiesced, it's not going to need quiescing again even if we
> >restart the tick.
> 
> That's true, but I really do like the idea of having a clean structure
> where we verify all our prerequisites in task_isolation_ready(), and
> have code to try to get things fixed up in task_isolation_enter().
> If we start moving some things here and some things there, it gets
> harder to manage.  I think by testing "!vmstat_idle()" in
> task_isolation_enter() we are avoiding any substantial overhead.

I think that making the code clearer on what needs to be done once for
all on prctl() and what needs to be done on all actual syscall return
is more important for readability.

> 
> I think it would be clearer to rename task_isolation_enter()
> to task_isolation_prepare(); it might be less confusing.

For the prctl part, why not.

> 
> Remember too that in general, we really don't need to think about
> return-to-userspace as a hot path for task isolation, unlike how we
> think about it all the rest of the time.  So it makes sense to
> prioritize keeping things clean from a software development
> perspective first, and high-performance only secondarily.
> 
> >>The thing to remember is that this is only relevant if the user has
> >>explicitly requested the NOSIG behavior from task isolation, which we
> >>don't really expect to be the default - we are implicitly encouraging
> >>use of the default semantics of "you can't enter the kernel again
> >>until you turn off isolation".
> >That's right. Although NOSIG is the only thing we can afford as long as
> >we drag around the 1Hz.
> 
> True enough.  Hopefully we'll finish sorting that out soon enough.
> 
> >>>>+	if (!tick_nohz_tick_stopped())
> >>>>+		set_tsk_need_resched(current);
> >>>>Again, that won't help
> >>It won't be better than spinning in a loop if there aren't any other
> >>schedulable processes, but it won't be worse either.  If there is
> >>another schedulable process, we at least will schedule it sooner than
> >>if we just sat in a busy loop and waited for the scheduler to kick
> >>us. But there's nothing else we can do anyway if we want to maintain
> >>the guarantee that the dyn tick is stopped before return to userspace.
> >I don't think it helps either way. If reschedule is pending, the current
> >task already has TIF_RESCHED set.
> 
> See the other thread with Peter Z for the longer discussion of this.
> At this point I'm leaning towards replacing the set_tsk_need_resched() with
> 
>     set_current_state(TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE);
>     schedule();
>     __set_current_state(TASK_RUNNING);

I don't see how that helps. What will wake the thread up except a signal?