Re: [PATCH RFC v2 tip/core/rcu] Maintain special bits at bottom of ->dynticks counter

From: Peter Zijlstra
Date: Mon Feb 13 2017 - 07:21:23 EST


On Thu, Feb 09, 2017 at 03:51:03PM -0800, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> Currently, IPIs are used to force other CPUs to invalidate their TLBs
> in response to a kernel virtual-memory mapping change. This works, but
> degrades both battery lifetime (for idle CPUs) and real-time response
> (for nohz_full CPUs), and in addition results in unnecessary IPIs due to
> the fact that CPUs executing in usermode are unaffected by stale kernel
> mappings. It would be better to cause a CPU executing in usermode to
> wait until it is entering kernel mode to do the flush, first to avoid
> interrupting usemode tasks and second to handle multiple flush requests
> with a single flush in the case of a long-running user task.
>
> This commit therefore reserves a bit at the bottom of the ->dynticks
> counter, which is checked upon exit from extended quiescent states.
> If it is set, it is cleared and then a new rcu_eqs_special_exit() macro is
> invoked, which, if not supplied, is an empty single-pass do-while loop.
> If this bottom bit is set on -entry- to an extended quiescent state,
> then a WARN_ON_ONCE() triggers.
>
> This bottom bit may be set using a new rcu_eqs_special_set() function,
> which returns true if the bit was set, or false if the CPU turned
> out to not be in an extended quiescent state. Please note that this
> function refuses to set the bit for a non-nohz_full CPU when that CPU
> is executing in usermode because usermode execution is tracked by RCU
> as a dyntick-idle extended quiescent state only for nohz_full CPUs.
>
> Changes since v1: Fix ordering of atomic_and() and the call to
> rcu_eqs_special_exit() in rcu_dynticks_eqs_exit().
>
> Reported-by: Andy Lutomirski <luto@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

I think I've asked this before, but why does this live in the guts of
RCU?

Should we lift this state tracking stuff out and make RCU and
NOHZ(_FULL) users of it, or doesn't that make sense (reason)?

In any case, small nit below:


> + seq = atomic_add_return(RCU_DYNTICK_CTRL_CTR, &rdtp->dynticks);
> + WARN_ON_ONCE(IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_RCU_EQS_DEBUG) &&
> + !(seq & RCU_DYNTICK_CTRL_CTR));
> + if (seq & RCU_DYNTICK_CTRL_MASK) {
> + atomic_and(~RCU_DYNTICK_CTRL_MASK, &rdtp->dynticks);
> + smp_mb__after_atomic(); /* _exit after clearing mask. */
> + /* Prefer duplicate flushes to losing a flush. */
> + rcu_eqs_special_exit();
> + }

we have atomic_andnot() for just these occasions :-)

> +/*
> + * Set the special (bottom) bit of the specified CPU so that it
> + * will take special action (such as flushing its TLB) on the
> + * next exit from an extended quiescent state. Returns true if
> + * the bit was successfully set, or false if the CPU was not in
> + * an extended quiescent state.
> + */
> +bool rcu_eqs_special_set(int cpu)
> +{
> + int old;
> + int new;
> + struct rcu_dynticks *rdtp = &per_cpu(rcu_dynticks, cpu);
> +
> + do {
> + old = atomic_read(&rdtp->dynticks);
> + if (old & RCU_DYNTICK_CTRL_CTR)
> + return false;
> + new = old | RCU_DYNTICK_CTRL_MASK;
> + } while (atomic_cmpxchg(&rdtp->dynticks, old, new) != old);
> + return true;

Is that what we call atomic_fetch_or() ?