Re: [BUG] msr-trace.h:42 suspicious rcu_dereference_check() usage!

[Steven Rostedt]

Paul,


On Mon, 21 Nov 2016 12:55:01 -0500
Steven Rostedt <rostedt@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On Mon, 21 Nov 2016 18:18:53 +0100
> Peter Zijlstra <peterz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> > Its not ftrace as such though, its RCU, ftrace simply uses RCU to avoid
> > locking, as one does.  
> 
> Just to be clear, as ftrace in the kernel mostly represents function
> tracing, which doesn't use RCU. This is a tracepoint feature.
> 
> > 
> > Biggest objection would be that the rcu_irq_enter_irqson() thing does
> > POPF and rcu_irq_exit_irqson() does again. So wrapping every tracepoint
> > with that is quite a few cycles.  
> 
> Agree. Even though this ends up being a whack-a-mole(TM) fix, I'm not
> concerned enough to put a heavy weight rcu idle code in for all
> tracepoints.
> 
> Although, what about a percpu flag that can be checked in the
> tracepoint code to see if it should enable RCU or not?
> 
> Hmm, I wonder if "rcu_is_watching()" is light enough to have in all
> tracepoints?

Is it possible to make rcu_is_watching() an inlined call to prevent the
overhead of doing a function call? This way we could use this in the
fast path of the tracepoint.

-- Steve