Re: On trace_*_rcuidle functions in modules

[John Stultz]

On Wed, Apr 15, 2020 at 1:14 PM Steven Rostedt <rostedt@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 15 Apr 2020 12:56:52 -0700
> John Stultz <john.stultz@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > I'm trying to enable the qcom rpmh driver
> > (drivers/soc/qcom/rpmh-rsc.c) to be a module.  As I mentioned to Paul,
> > it registers a cpu_pm notifier callback, which calls its
> > __tcs_buffer_write() function. The trace in the __tcs_buffer_write()
> > function was just converted to using rcuidle to address bugs seen when
> > it was being called from idle.
> >
> > > Currently, Thomas and Peter are working on removing trace events from
> > > places that don't have RCU enabled, or at least cleaning up the context
> > > switches from user to kernel to interrupt.
> >
> > So does that mean folks would most likely lean to trying to remove the
> > tracepoint rather than reevaluating allowing the rcuidle call to be
> > made from the module?
> >
>
> No. The clean up is to try to make the switch from each context small, fast
> and safe. But what you are describing is the switch to idle, which is a
> different story and something that there's some talk about cleaning up, but
> not at the same level. Especially if there's more complex code that is
> happening with RCU watching.
>
> Looking at the commit that keeps trace_*_rcuidle() code out:
>
>   7ece55a4a3a04a ("trace: Don't declare trace_*_rcuidle functions in modules")
>
> Which was added because the rcuidle variant called RCU code that was not
> exported either. Which would have the same issue now as
> rcu_irq_exit_irqson() is also not exported. Which would be needed.

Right, reverting that change and adding the exports seems like the
most direct solution, but I suspect that wasn't done back in the day
for a good reason. So I'm just trying to better understand that
reason.

> Hmm, isn't module code itself synchronized via RCU. Then having module code
> being called without RCU "watching" could be dangerous?

I'm not sure I'm following you here. Could you explain more?

thanks
-john