Re: [PATCH v4 13/13] openrisc: add tick timer multi-core sync logic

From: Stafford Horne
Date: Tue Oct 31 2017 - 20:35:05 EST


On Wed, Nov 01, 2017 at 08:17:59AM +0900, Stafford Horne wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 31, 2017 at 02:06:21PM +0000, Matt Redfearn wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> >
> > On 29/10/17 23:11, Stafford Horne wrote:
> > > In case timers are not in sync when cpus start (i.e. hot plug / offset
> > > resets) we need to synchronize the secondary cpus internal timer with
> > > the main cpu. This is needed as in OpenRISC SMP there is only one
> > > clocksource registered which reads from the same ttcr register on each
> > > cpu.
> > >
> > > This synchronization routine heavily borrows from mips implementation that
> > > does something similar.
> [..]
> > > diff --git a/arch/openrisc/kernel/smp.c b/arch/openrisc/kernel/smp.c
> > > index 4763b8b9161e..4d80ce6fa045 100644
> > > --- a/arch/openrisc/kernel/smp.c
> > > +++ b/arch/openrisc/kernel/smp.c
> > > @@ -100,6 +100,7 @@ int __cpu_up(unsigned int cpu, struct task_struct *idle)
> > > pr_crit("CPU%u: failed to start\n", cpu);
> > > return -EIO;
> > > }
> > > + synchronise_count_master(cpu);
> > > return 0;
> > > }
> > > @@ -129,6 +130,8 @@ asmlinkage __init void secondary_start_kernel(void)
> > > set_cpu_online(cpu, true);
> > > complete(&cpu_running);
> > > + synchronise_count_slave(cpu);
> > > +
> >
> >
> > Note that until 8f46cca1e6c06a058374816887059bcc017b382f, the MIPS timer
> > synchronization code contained the possibility of deadlock. If you mark a
> > CPU online before it goes into the synchronize loop, then the boot CPU can
> > schedule a different thread and send IPIs to all "online" CPUs. It gets
> > stuck waiting for the secondary to ack it's IPI, since this secondary CPU
> > has not enabled IRQs yet, and is stuck waiting for the master to synchronise
> > with it. The system then deadlocks.
> > Commit 8f46cca1e6c06a058374816887059bcc017b382f fixed this for MIPS and you
> > might want to similarly move the
> >
> > set_cpu_online(cpu, true);
> >
> > after counters are synchronized.
>
> Thank you for the heads up. I do remember having interim issues with the timer
> syncing but I havent seen it for a while. I think I fixed it by also moving
> synchronise_count_slave.
>
> Let me double check. Also, I see your patch 8f46cca1e6c06a0583748168 was merged
> last year?

Hello,

I should have read a bit more closely, definitely this could be an issue if the
boot cpu has other things running.

However, looking at mainline I can see the clock sync comes after set_cpu_online
again after this patch in mips.

6f542ebeaee0 MIPS: Fix race on setting and getting cpu_online_mask
Author: Matija Glavinic Pecotic <matija.glavinic-pecotic.ext@xxxxxxxxx>

Is this deadlock an issue in mips again?

-Stafford