Re: [PATCH v2] locking/rtmutex: Limit # of lock stealing for non-RT waiters

From: Waiman Long
Date: Tue Jun 21 2022 - 15:38:20 EST


On 6/21/22 15:36, Waiman Long wrote:
Commit 48eb3f4fcfd3 ("locking/rtmutex: Implement equal priority lock
stealing") allows unlimited number of lock stealing's for non-RT
tasks. That can lead to lock starvation of non-RT top waiter tasks if
there is a constant incoming stream of non-RT lockers. This can cause
task lockup in PREEMPT_RT kernel. For example,

[ 1249.921363] INFO: task systemd:2178 blocked for more than 622 seconds.
[ 1872.984225] INFO: task kworker/6:4:63401 blocked for more than 622 seconds.

Avoiding this problem and ensuring forward progress by limiting the
number of times that a lock can be stolen from each waiter. This patch
sets a threshold of 10. That number is arbitrary and can be changed
if needed.

With that change, the task lockups previously observed when running
stressful workloads on PREEMPT_RT kernel disappeared.

Fixes: 48eb3f4fcfd3 ("locking/rtmutex: Implement equal priority lock stealing")
Reported-by: Mike Stowell <mstowell@xxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Waiman Long <longman@xxxxxxxxxx>

There is no code change in v2. I have only updated the patch description.

Cheers,
Longman