Re: [RFC] sched,livepatch: call klp_try_switch_task in __cond_resched

From: Peter Zijlstra
Date: Mon May 09 2022 - 05:55:29 EST


On Mon, May 09, 2022 at 08:06:22AM +0000, Song Liu wrote:
>
>
> > On May 9, 2022, at 12:04 AM, Peter Zijlstra <peterz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > On Sat, May 07, 2022 at 10:46:28AM -0700, Song Liu wrote:
> >> Busy kernel threads may block the transition of livepatch. Call
> >> klp_try_switch_task from __cond_resched to make the transition easier.
> >
> > What will a PREEMPT=y kernel do? How is it not a problem there, and if
> > it is, this will not help that.
> >
> > That is; I don't think this can be right.
>
> I guess on PREEMPT=y kernel, we can simply preempt the long running
> kernel thread and check the transition?

This is not a guessing game.

> In this case (PREEMPT=n), we see a long running kernel thread could not
> finish the transition. It calls cond_resched() and gets rescheduled
> (moves among different cores). However, it never finishes the transition,
> because live patch doesn’t get a chance to check the stack.
>
> Does this answer the question?

Not really. There is no difference between an explicit preemption point
(cond_resched) or an involuntary preemption point (PREEMPT=y).

So unless you can *exactly* say why it isn't a problem on PREEMPT=y,
none of this makes any sense.