[PATCH 1/2] swait: add idle variants which don't contribute to load average

From: Luis R. Rodriguez
Date: Tue Jun 20 2017 - 17:46:30 EST


There are cases where folks are using an interruptible swait when
using kthreads. This is rather confusing given you'd expect
interruptible waits to be -- interruptible, but kthreads are not
interruptible ! The reason for such practice though is to avoid
having these kthreads contribute to the system load average.

When systems are idle some kthreads may spend a lot of time blocking if
using swait_event_timeout(). This would contribute to the system load
average. On systems without preemption this would mean the load average
of an idle system is bumped to 2 instead of 0. On systems with PREEMPT=y
this would mean the load average of an idle system is bumped to 3
instead of 0.

This adds proper API using TASK_IDLE to make such goals explicit and
avoid confusion.

Suggested-by: "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Acked-by: "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Tested-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Luis R. Rodriguez <mcgrof@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
include/linux/swait.h | 55 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1 file changed, 55 insertions(+)

diff --git a/include/linux/swait.h b/include/linux/swait.h
index 2c700694d50a..10b80900b509 100644
--- a/include/linux/swait.h
+++ b/include/linux/swait.h
@@ -194,4 +194,59 @@ do { \
__ret; \
})

+#define __swait_event_idle(wq, condition) \
+ (void)___swait_event(wq, condition, TASK_IDLE, 0, schedule())
+
+/**
+ * swait_event_idle - wait without system load contribution
+ * @wq: the waitqueue to wait on
+ * @condition: a C expression for the event to wait for
+ *
+ * The process is put to sleep (TASK_IDLE) until the @condition evaluates to
+ * true. The @condition is checked each time the waitqueue @wq is woken up.
+ *
+ * This function is mostly used when a kthread or workqueue waits for some
+ * condition and doesn't want to contribute to system load. Signals are
+ * ignored.
+ */
+#define swait_event_idle(wq, condition) \
+do { \
+ if (condition) \
+ break; \
+ __swait_event_idle(wq, condition); \
+} while (0)
+
+#define __swait_event_idle_timeout(wq, condition, timeout) \
+ ___swait_event(wq, ___wait_cond_timeout(condition), \
+ TASK_IDLE, timeout, \
+ __ret = schedule_timeout(__ret))
+
+/**
+ * swait_event_idle_timeout - wait up to timeout without load contribution
+ * @wq: the waitqueue to wait on
+ * @condition: a C expression for the event to wait for
+ * @timeout: timeout at which we'll give up in jiffies
+ *
+ * The process is put to sleep (TASK_IDLE) until the @condition evaluates to
+ * true. The @condition is checked each time the waitqueue @wq is woken up.
+ *
+ * This function is mostly used when a kthread or workqueue waits for some
+ * condition and doesn't want to contribute to system load. Signals are
+ * ignored.
+ *
+ * Returns:
+ * 0 if the @condition evaluated to %false after the @timeout elapsed,
+ * 1 if the @condition evaluated to %true after the @timeout elapsed,
+ * or the remaining jiffies (at least 1) if the @condition evaluated
+ * to %true before the @timeout elapsed.
+ */
+#define swait_event_idle_timeout(wq, condition, timeout) \
+({ \
+ long __ret = timeout; \
+ if (!___wait_cond_timeout(condition)) \
+ __ret = __swait_event_idle_timeout(wq, \
+ condition, timeout); \
+ __ret; \
+})
+
#endif /* _LINUX_SWAIT_H */
--
2.11.0