Re: [RT][PATCH 2/2] tick: Fix timer storm since introduction of timersd

[Frederic Weisbecker]

On Tue, Apr 05, 2022 at 09:21:16AM -0700, Alison Chaiken wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 4, 2022 at 9:33 PM Frederic Weisbecker <frederic@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > If timers are pending while the tick is reprogrammed on nohz_mode, the
> > next expiry is not armed to fire now, it is delayed one jiffy forward
> > instead so as not to raise an inextinguishable timer storm with such
> > scenario:
> >
> > 1) IRQ triggers and queue a timer
> > 2) ksoftirqd() is woken up
> > 3) IRQ tail: timer is reprogrammed to fire now
> > 4) IRQ exit
> > 5) TIMER interrupt
> > 6) goto 3)
> >
> > ...all that until we finally reach ksoftirqd.
> >
> > Unfortunately we are checking the wrong softirq vector bitmask since
> > timersd kthread has split from ksoftirqd. Timers now have their own
> > vector state field that must be checked separately.
> 
> With kernel 5.15 and the timersd patch applied, we've observed that
> x86_64 cores tend to enter deeper C-states even when there are pending
> hrtimers.      Presumably failure to check the right   bits could also
> explain that observation and, accordingly, the patch might fix it?

Well, this issue rather adds unnecessary ticks. Thus I wouldn't expect
deeper C-states as a consequence but who knows...

Thanks.