Re: [PATCH 4/8] membarrier: Make the post-switch-mm barrier explicit

[Andy Lutomirski]

On 6/17/21 8:02 AM, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 16, 2021 at 10:32:15PM -0700, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
>> I would appreciate everyone's thoughts as to whether this scheme is sane.
>>
>> Paul, I'm adding you for two reasons.  First, you seem to enjoy bizarre locking schemes.  Secondly, because maybe RCU could actually work here.  The basic idea is that we want to keep an mm_struct from being freed at an inopportune time.  The problem with naively using RCU is that each CPU can use one single mm_struct while in an idle extended quiescent state (but not a user extended quiescent state).  So rcu_read_lock() is right out.  If RCU could understand this concept, then maybe it could help us, but this seems a bit out of scope for RCU.
> 
> OK, I should look at your patch, but that will be after morning meetings.
> 
> On RCU and idle, much of the idle code now allows rcu_read_lock() to be
> directly, thanks to Peter's recent work.  Any sort of interrupt or NMI
> from idle can also use rcu_read_lock(), including the IPIs that are now
> done directly from idle.  RCU_NONIDLE() makes RCU pay attention to the
> code supplied as its sole argument.
> 
> Or is your patch really having the CPU expect a mm_struct to stick around
> across the full idle sojourn, and without the assistance of mmgrab()
> and mmdrop()?

I really do expect it to stick around across the full idle sojourn.
Unless RCU is more magical than I think it is, this means I can't use RCU.

--Andy