Re: [PATCH] cpuhp: Expedite synchronize_rcu during CPU hotplug operations

From: Uladzislau Rezki

Date: Mon Jan 12 2026 - 05:08:18 EST


On Mon, Jan 12, 2026 at 03:13:33PM +0530, Vishal Chourasia wrote:
> Bulk CPU hotplug operations—such as switching SMT modes across all
> cores—require hotplugging multiple CPUs in rapid succession. On large
> systems, this process takes significant time, increasing as the number
> of CPUs grows, leading to substantial delays on high-core-count
> machines. Analysis [1] reveals that the majority of this time is spent
> waiting for synchronize_rcu().
>
> Expedite synchronize_rcu() during the hotplug path to accelerate the
> operation. Since CPU hotplug is a user-initiated administrative task,
> it should complete as quickly as possible.
>
> Performance data on a PPC64 system with 400 CPUs:
>
> + ppc64_cpu --smt=1 (SMT8 to SMT1)
> Before: real 1m14.792s
> After: real 0m03.205s # ~23x improvement
>
> + ppc64_cpu --smt=8 (SMT1 to SMT8)
> Before: real 2m27.695s
> After: real 0m02.510s # ~58x improvement
>
> Above numbers were collected on Linux 6.19.0-rc4-00310-g755bc1335e3b
>
> [1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/5f2ab8a44d685701fe36cdaa8042a1aef215d10d.camel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
Also you can try: echo 1 > /sys/module/rcutree/parameters/rcu_normal_wake_from_gp
to speedup regular synchronize_rcu() call. But i am not saying that it would beat
your "expedited switch" improvement.

--
Uladzislau Rezki