Re: [PATCH] power, sched: stop updating inside arch_update_cpu_topology() when nothing to be update

From: Srivatsa S. Bhat
Date: Mon Apr 07 2014 - 05:52:02 EST


Hi Michael,

On 04/04/2014 09:18 AM, Michael wang wrote:
> Hi, Srivatsa
>
> Thanks for your reply :)
>
> On 04/03/2014 04:50 PM, Srivatsa S. Bhat wrote:
> [snip]
>>
>> Now, the interesting thing to note here is that, if CPU0's node was already
>> set as node0, *nothing* should go wrong, since its just a redundant update.
>> However, if CPU0's original node mapping was something different, or if
>> node0 doesn't even exist in the machine, then the system can crash.
>
> By printk I confirmed all cpus was belong to node 1 at very beginning,
> and things become magically after the wrong updating...
>

Ok, thanks!

>>
>> Have you verified that CPU0's node mapping is different from node 0?
>> That is, boot the kernel with "numa=debug" in the kernel command line and
>> it will print out the cpu-to-node associativity during boot. That way you
>> can figure out what was the original associativity that was set. This will
>> confirm the theory that the hypervisor sent a redundant update, but because
>> of the weird pre-allocation using kzalloc that we do inside
>> arch_update_cpu_topology(), we wrongly updated CPU0's mapping as CPU0 <-> Node0.
>
> Associativity should changes, otherwise we won't continue the updating,
> and empty updates[] was confirmed to show up inside
> arch_update_cpu_topology().
>

Ah, ok, that makes it very clear. So, I agree that your patch is correct,
but I think the comment in your patch can be enhanced a bit. I'll suggest
something if I manage to come up with a better wording.

> What I can't make sure is whether this is legal, notify changes but no
> changes happen sounds weird...however, even if it's legal, a check in
> here still make sense IMHO.
>

That looks like a bug in the hypervisor/firmware. But the Linux kernel should
be able to handle such NULL updates without crashing. So yes, your patch makes
sense to me.

Thank you!

Regards,
Srivatsa S. Bhat

>>
>>> Thus we should stop the updating in such cases, this patch will achieve
>>> this and fix the issue.
>>>
>>> CC: Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>> CC: Paul Mackerras <paulus@xxxxxxxxx>
>>> CC: Nathan Fontenot <nfont@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>> CC: Stephen Rothwell <sfr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>> CC: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>> CC: Robert Jennings <rcj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>> CC: Jesse Larrew <jlarrew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>> CC: "Srivatsa S. Bhat" <srivatsa.bhat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>> CC: Alistair Popple <alistair@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>> Signed-off-by: Michael Wang <wangyun@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>> ---
>>> arch/powerpc/mm/numa.c | 9 +++++++++
>>> 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+)
>>>
>>> diff --git a/arch/powerpc/mm/numa.c b/arch/powerpc/mm/numa.c
>>> index 30a42e2..6757690 100644
>>> --- a/arch/powerpc/mm/numa.c
>>> +++ b/arch/powerpc/mm/numa.c
>>> @@ -1591,6 +1591,14 @@ int arch_update_cpu_topology(void)
>>> cpu = cpu_last_thread_sibling(cpu);
>>> }
>>>
>>> + /*
>>> + * The 'cpu_associativity_changes_mask' could be cleared if
>>> + * all the cpus it indicates won't change their node, in
>>> + * which case the 'updated_cpus' will be empty.
>>> + */
>>> + if (!cpumask_weight(&updated_cpus))
>>> + goto out;
>>> +
>>> stop_machine(update_cpu_topology, &updates[0], &updated_cpus);
>>>
>>> /*
>>> @@ -1612,6 +1620,7 @@ int arch_update_cpu_topology(void)
>>> changed = 1;
>>> }
>>>
>>> +out:
>>> kfree(updates);
>>> return changed;
>>> }
>>>
>>

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