[PATCH] hrtimer: increase clock min delta threshold while interrupthanging

[Frederic Weisbecker]

Impact: avoid hanging on slow systems

While using the function graph tracer on a virtualized system, the hrtimer_interrupt
can hang the system on an infinite loop.
This can be caused on several situation where something intrusive is slowing the
system (ie: tracing) and the next clock events to program are always before the current
time.
This patch implements a reasonable compromise. If such a situation is detected, we share
the CPUs time in 1/4 to process the hrtimer interrupts. This is enough to let the system
running without serious starvation.

It has been successfully tested under VirtualBox with 1000 HZ and 100 HZ with function graph
tracer launched. On both cases, the clock events were increased until about 25 ms periodic ticks,
which means 40 HZ.

Signed-off-by: Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
 kernel/hrtimer.c |   30 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
 1 files changed, 29 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)

diff --git a/kernel/hrtimer.c b/kernel/hrtimer.c
index bda9cb9..02f2477 100644
--- a/kernel/hrtimer.c
+++ b/kernel/hrtimer.c
@@ -1171,6 +1171,29 @@ static void __run_hrtimer(struct hrtimer *timer)
 
 #ifdef CONFIG_HIGH_RES_TIMERS
 
+static int force_clock_reprogram;
+
+/*
+ * After 5 iteration's attempts, we consider that hrtimer_interrupt()
+ * is hanging, which could happen with something that slows the interrupt
+ * such as the tracing. Then we force the clock reprogramming for each future
+ * hrtimer interrupts to avoid infinite loops and use the min_delta_ns
+ * threshold that we will overwrite.
+ * The next tick event will be scheduled to 3 times we currently spend on
+ * hrtimer_interrupt(). This gives a good compromise, the cpus will spend
+ * 1/4 of their time to process the hrtimer interrupts. This is enough to
+ * let it running without serious starvation.
+ */
+
+static inline void
+hrtimer_interrupt_hanging(struct clock_event_device *dev,
+			ktime_t try_time)
+{
+	force_clock_reprogram = 1;
+	dev->min_delta_ns = (unsigned long)try_time.tv64 * 3;
+	printk(KERN_WARNING "hrtimer: interrupt too slow, "
+		"forcing clock min delta to %lu ns\n", dev->min_delta_ns);
+}
 /*
  * High resolution timer interrupt
  * Called with interrupts disabled
@@ -1180,6 +1203,7 @@ void hrtimer_interrupt(struct clock_event_device *dev)
 	struct hrtimer_cpu_base *cpu_base = &__get_cpu_var(hrtimer_bases);
 	struct hrtimer_clock_base *base;
 	ktime_t expires_next, now;
+	int nr_retries = 0;
 	int i;
 
 	BUG_ON(!cpu_base->hres_active);
@@ -1187,6 +1211,10 @@ void hrtimer_interrupt(struct clock_event_device *dev)
 	dev->next_event.tv64 = KTIME_MAX;
 
  retry:
+	/* 5 retries is enough to notice a hang */
+	if (!(++nr_retries % 5))
+		hrtimer_interrupt_hanging(dev, ktime_sub(ktime_get(), now));
+
 	now = ktime_get();
 
 	expires_next.tv64 = KTIME_MAX;
@@ -1239,7 +1267,7 @@ void hrtimer_interrupt(struct clock_event_device *dev)
 
 	/* Reprogramming necessary ? */
 	if (expires_next.tv64 != KTIME_MAX) {
-		if (tick_program_event(expires_next, 0))
+		if (tick_program_event(expires_next, force_clock_reprogram))
 			goto retry;
 	}
 }
-- 
1.6.0.4

--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/