Re: [patch] f83f9ac causes tasks running at MAX_PRIO

From: Steven Rostedt
Date: Wed Dec 02 2009 - 09:03:32 EST


On Wed, 2009-12-02 at 12:46 +0100, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> On Sun, 2009-11-29 at 14:23 +0100, Mike Galbraith wrote:
>
> > sched: fix task priority bug.
> >
> > f83f9ac removed a call to effective_prio() in wake_up_new_task(), which
> > leads to tasks running at MAX_PRIO. That call set both the child's prio
> > and normal_prio fields to normal_prio(child). Do the same fork time by
> > setting both to normal_prio(parent).
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Mike Galbraith <efault@xxxxxx>
> > Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@xxxxxxx>
> > Cc: Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@xxxxxxxxx>
> > Cc: Peter Williams <pwil3058@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > LKML-Reference: <new-submission>
> >
> > ---
> > kernel/sched.c | 2 +-
> > 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
> >
> > Index: linux-2.6/kernel/sched.c
> > ===================================================================
> > --- linux-2.6.orig/kernel/sched.c
> > +++ linux-2.6/kernel/sched.c
> > @@ -2609,7 +2609,7 @@ void sched_fork(struct task_struct *p, i
> > /*
> > * Make sure we do not leak PI boosting priority to the child.
> > */
> > - p->prio = current->normal_prio;
> > + p->prio = p->normal_prio = normal_prio(current);
> >
> > if (!rt_prio(p->prio))
> > p->sched_class = &fair_sched_class;
> >
>
> Damn PI stuff makes my head hurt ;-)

I recommend Advil

>
> So we've got:
>
> ->prio - the actual effective priority [ prio scale ]
> ->normal_prio - the task's normal priority [ prio scale ]
> ->static_prio - SCHED_OTHER's nice value [ prio scale ]
> ->rt_priority - SCHED_FIFO/RR prio value [ sched_param scale ]
>
> [ with prio scale being:
>
> [0, MAX_RT_PRIO-1] [MAX_RT_PRIO, MAX_PRIO-1]
> RT-100, RT-99..RT-1 NICE-20, NICE+19
> ]
>
> So at sched_fork() we do the
>
> p->prio = p->normal_prio;
>
> thing, to unboost.
>
> If that results in MAX_PRIO, then our parent's ->normal_prio is stuffed.
>
> Looking at the code I can see that happening because we've got:
>
> init_idle() doing:
> idle->prio = idle->normal_prio = MAX_PRIO;

But this is only called on the idle task, which should never fork.


>
> Which will propagate... like reported.
>
> Now, since the idle-threads usually run on &idle_sched_class, nobody
> will actually look at their ->prio, so having that out-of-range might
> make sense.
>
> Just needs to get fixed up when we fork a normal thread, which would be
> in sched_fork(), now your call to normal_prio() fixes this by setting
> everything to ->static_prio for SCHED_OTHER tasks, however
>
> migration_call()
> CPU_DEAD:
> rq->idle->static_prio = MAX_PRIO;
>
> spoils that too, then again, at that point nothing will fork from that
> idle thread.

Well, that is when the CPU is dead, right?

>
> Funny thing though, INIT_TASK() sets everything at MAX_PRIO-20.

Right, because the init task will fork. But once a task becomes idle, it
should never do anything (but service interrupts).

>
> Ingo, any particular reason we set idle threads at MAX_PRIO? Can't we
> simply do something like below and be done with it?

There probably isn't any reason this can't be done, but I'm thinking we
may be papering over a bug instead of solving one.

-- Steve

>
> ---
> kernel/sched.c | 2 --
> 1 files changed, 0 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/kernel/sched.c b/kernel/sched.c
> index c0e4e9d..5ad5a66 100644
> --- a/kernel/sched.c
> +++ b/kernel/sched.c
> @@ -6963,7 +6963,6 @@ void __cpuinit init_idle(struct task_struct *idle,
> int cpu)
> __sched_fork(idle);
> idle->se.exec_start = sched_clock();
>
> - idle->prio = idle->normal_prio = MAX_PRIO;
> cpumask_copy(&idle->cpus_allowed, cpumask_of(cpu));
> __set_task_cpu(idle, cpu);
>
> @@ -7667,7 +7666,6 @@ migration_call(struct notifier_block *nfb,
> unsigned long action, void *hcpu)
> spin_lock_irq(&rq->lock);
> update_rq_clock(rq);
> deactivate_task(rq, rq->idle, 0);
> - rq->idle->static_prio = MAX_PRIO;
> __setscheduler(rq, rq->idle, SCHED_NORMAL, 0);
> rq->idle->sched_class = &idle_sched_class;
> migrate_dead_tasks(cpu);
>
>

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