Re: [PATCH 1/2] powerpc/workqueue: update list of possible CPUs

[Laurent Vivier]

On 23/08/2017 15:26, Tejun Heo wrote:
> Hello, Michael.
> 
> On Wed, Aug 23, 2017 at 09:00:39PM +1000, Michael Ellerman wrote:
>>> I don't think that's true.  The CPU id used in kernel doesn't have to
>>> match the physical one and arch code should be able to pre-map CPU IDs
>>> to nodes and use the matching one when hotplugging CPUs.  I'm not
>>> saying that's the best way to solve the problem tho.
>>
>> We already virtualise the CPU numbers, but not the node IDs. And it's
>> the node IDs that are really the problem.
> 
> Yeah, it just needs to match up new cpus to the cpu ids assigned to
> the right node.

We are not able to assign the cpu ids to the right node before the CPU
is present, because firmware doesn't provide CPU mapping <-> node id
before that.

>>> It could be that the best way forward is making cpu <-> node mapping
>>> dynamic and properly synchronized.
>>
>> We don't need it to be dynamic (at least for this bug).
> 
> The node mapping for that cpu id changes *dynamically* while the
> system is running and that can race with node-affinity sensitive
> operations such as memory allocations.

Memory is mapped to the node through its own firmware entry, so I don't
think cpu id change can affect memory affinity, and before we know the
node id of the CPU, the CPU is not present and thus it can't use memory.

>> Laurent is booting Qemu with a fixed CPU <-> Node mapping, it's just
>> that because some CPUs aren't present at boot we don't know what the
>> node mapping is. (Correct me if I'm wrong Laurent).
>>
>> So all we need is:
>>  - the workqueue code to cope with CPUs that are possible but not online
>>    having NUMA_NO_NODE to begin with.
>>  - a way to update the workqueue cpumask when the CPU comes online.
>>
>> Which seems reasonable to me?
> 
> Please take a step back and think through the problem again.  You
> can't bandaid it this way.

Could you give some ideas, proposals?
As the firmware doesn't provide the information before the CPU is really
plugged, I really don't know how to manage this problem.

Thanks,
Laurent