Re: [pchecks v1 3/4] Use raw_cpu_ops for refresh_cpu_vm_stats()

From: Ingo Molnar
Date: Tue Sep 24 2013 - 03:44:00 EST



* Christoph Lameter <cl@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> We do not care about races for the expiration logic in
> refresh_cpu_vm_stats(). Draining is a rare act after all.
> No need to create too much overhead for that.
>
> Use raw_cpu_ops there.
>
> Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter <cl@xxxxxxxxx>
>
> Index: linux/mm/vmstat.c
> ===================================================================
> --- linux.orig/mm/vmstat.c 2013-09-23 10:20:31.742262228 -0500
> +++ linux/mm/vmstat.c 2013-09-23 10:20:31.738262268 -0500
> @@ -439,6 +439,10 @@ static inline void fold_diff(int *diff)
> * statistics in the remote zone struct as well as the global cachelines
> * with the global counters. These could cause remote node cache line
> * bouncing and will have to be only done when necessary.
> + *
> + * Note that we have to use raw_cpu ops here. The thread is pinned
> + * to a specific processor but the preempt checking logic does not
> + * know about this.

That's not actually true - debug_smp_processor_id() does a check for the
pinning status of the current task:

/*
* Kernel threads bound to a single CPU can safely use
* smp_processor_id():
*/
if (cpumask_equal(tsk_cpus_allowed(current), cpumask_of(this_cpu)))
goto out;

You should factor out those existing debug checks and reuse them, instead
of using inferior ones.

Note that debug_smp_processor_id() can probably be optimized a bit: today
we have p->nr_cpus_allowed which tracks the pinning status, so instead of
the above line we could write this cheaper form:

if (current->nr_cpus_allowed == 1)
goto out;

(This should help on kernels configured for larger systems where the
cpumask is non-trivial.)

What we cannot do is to hide the weakness of the debug check you added by
adding various workarounds to core code.

Thanks,

Ingo
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