From aa9b16306e3243229580ff889cc59fd66bf77973 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "Paul E. McKenney" Date: Thu, 10 May 2012 16:41:44 -0700 Subject: rcu: Precompute RCU_FAST_NO_HZ timer offsets When a CPU is entering dyntick-idle mode, tick_nohz_stop_sched_tick() calls rcu_needs_cpu() see if RCU needs that CPU, and, if not, computes the next wakeup time based on the timer wheels. Only later, when actually entering the idle loop, rcu_prepare_for_idle() will be invoked. In some cases, rcu_prepare_for_idle() will post timers to wake the CPU back up. But all for naught: The next wakeup time for the CPU has already been computed, and posting a timer afterwards does not force that wakeup time to be recomputed. This means that rcu_prepare_for_idle()'s have no effect. This is not a problem on a busy system because something else will wake up the CPU soon enough. However, on lightly loaded systems, the CPU might stay asleep for a considerable length of time. If that CPU has a callback that the rest of the system is waiting on, the system might run very slowly or (in theory) even hang. This commit avoids this problem by having rcu_needs_cpu() give tick_nohz_stop_sched_tick() an estimate of when RCU will need the CPU to wake back up, which tick_nohz_stop_sched_tick() takes into account when programming the CPU's wakeup time. An alternative approach is for rcu_prepare_for_idle() to use hrtimers instead of normal timers, but timers are much more efficient than are hrtimers for frequently and repeatedly posting and cancelling a given timer, which is exactly what RCU_FAST_NO_HZ does. Reported-by: Pascal Chapperon Reported-by: Heiko Carstens Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney Tested-by: Heiko Carstens Tested-by: Pascal Chapperon --- include/linux/rcutree.h | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) (limited to 'include/linux/rcutree.h') diff --git a/include/linux/rcutree.h b/include/linux/rcutree.h index 3c6083cde4fc..952b79339304 100644 --- a/include/linux/rcutree.h +++ b/include/linux/rcutree.h @@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ extern void rcu_init(void); extern void rcu_note_context_switch(int cpu); -extern int rcu_needs_cpu(int cpu); +extern int rcu_needs_cpu(int cpu, unsigned long *delta_jiffies); extern void rcu_cpu_stall_reset(void); /* -- cgit v1.2.3