Re: [PATCH 2/2] cpuhotplug: make get_online_cpus() scalability byusing percpu counter

From: Oleg Nesterov
Date: Wed Apr 07 2010 - 09:57:42 EST


On 04/07, Lai Jiangshan wrote:
>
> Oleg Nesterov wrote:
> > On 04/05, Oleg Nesterov wrote:
> >> On 04/05, Lai Jiangshan wrote:
> >>> 1) get_online_cpus() must be allowed to be called recursively, so I added
> >>> get_online_cpus_nest for every task for new code.
> >> Well, iirc one of the goals of
> >>
> >> cpu-hotplug: replace lock_cpu_hotplug() with get_online_cpus()
> >> 86ef5c9a8edd78e6bf92879f32329d89b2d55b5a
> >>
> >> was avoiding the new members in task_struct. I leave this up to you
> >> and Gautham.
>
> Old get_online_cpus() is read-preference, I think the goal of this ability
> is allow get_online_cpus()/put_online_cpus() to be called nested.

Sure, I understand why you added task_struct->get_online_cpus_nest.

> and use per-task counter for allowing get_online_cpus()/put_online_cpus()
> to be called nested, I think this deal is absolutely worth.

As I said, I am not going to argue. I can't justify this tradeoff.

> >>> void put_online_cpus(void)
> >>> {
> >>> ...
> >>> + if (!--current->get_online_cpus_nest) {
> >>> + preempt_disable();
> >>> + __get_cpu_var(refcount)--;
> >>> + if (cpu_hotplug_task)
> >>> + wake_up_process(cpu_hotplug_task);
> >> This looks unsafe. In theory nothing protects cpu_hotplug_task from
> >> exiting if refcount_sum() becomes zero, this means wake_up_process()
> >> can hit the freed/reused/unmapped task_struct. Probably cpu_hotplug_done()
> >> needs another synhronize_sched() before return.
> >
> > Yes, I think this is true, at least in theory.
>
> preempt_disable() prevent cpu_hotplug_task from exiting.

If the cpu_down() is the caller of cpu_hotplug_begin/done, then yes.

But unless I missed something, nothing protects from cpu_up() which
takes this lock too.

Just in case... I am not saying this is really possible in practice.

Oleg.

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