Re: semaphore and mutex in current Linux kernel (3.2.2)

From: Paul E. McKenney
Date: Mon Apr 09 2012 - 14:48:05 EST


On Fri, Apr 06, 2012 at 05:47:28PM +0000, Chen, Dennis (SRDC SW) wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 6:10 PM, Clemens Ladisch <clemens@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > Chen, Dennis (SRDC SW) wrote:
> >> On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 10:15 PM, Clemens Ladisch <clemens@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>
> >> I guess this is related with RCU component, but I don't found the right place where the code
> >> Located yet.
> >
> > "On the internet, nobody can hear you being subtle."
> >
> > If some other process wants to run on the same CPU, needs_resched() is set.
> > (This might happen to make the cursor blink, for keyboard input, or when
> > somebody starts a rogue process like ps.)
> >
>
> Hmm, I forget that in each timer interrupt, __rcu_pending() will be called, it will call
> set_need_resched() to set the TIF_NEED_RESCHED in some condition...
> The optimization of mutex work closely with rcu, so fantastic!

I must confess that you all lost me on this one.

There is a call to set_need_resched() in __rcu_pending(), which is
invoked when the current CPU has not yet responded to a non-preemptible
RCU grace period for some time. However, in the common case where the
CPUs all respond in reasonable time, __rcu_pending() will never call
set_need_resched().

However, we really do not want to call set_need_resched() on every call
to __rcu_pending(). There is almost certainly a better solution to any
problem that might be solved by a per-jiffy call to set_need_resched().

So, what are you really trying to do?

Thanx, Paul

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