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    SubjectRe: [PATCH RFC tip/core/rcu 19/28] nohz: Allow rcu extended quiescent state handling seperately from tick stop
    On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 09:22:19AM -0800, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
    > On Wed, Nov 09, 2011 at 05:48:11PM +0100, Frederic Weisbecker wrote:
    > > On Thu, Nov 03, 2011 at 09:06:56AM -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
    > > > On Thu, Nov 03, 2011 at 08:31:02AM -0700, Josh Triplett wrote:
    > > > > On Thu, Nov 03, 2011 at 06:32:31AM -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
    > > > > > On Thu, Nov 03, 2011 at 12:54:33PM +0100, Frederic Weisbecker wrote:
    > > > > > > On Wed, Nov 02, 2011 at 09:00:03PM -0700, Josh Triplett wrote:
    > > > > > > > On Wed, Nov 02, 2011 at 01:30:40PM -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
    > > > > > > > > From: Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@gmail.com>
    > > > > > > > >
    > > > > > > > > It is assumed that rcu won't be used once we switch to tickless
    > > > > > > > > mode and until we restart the tick. However this is not always
    > > > > > > > > true, as in x86-64 where we dereference the idle notifiers after
    > > > > > > > > the tick is stopped.
    > > > > > > > >
    > > > > > > > > To prepare for fixing this, add two new APIs:
    > > > > > > > > tick_nohz_idle_enter_norcu() and tick_nohz_idle_exit_norcu().
    > > > > > > > >
    > > > > > > > > If no use of RCU is made in the idle loop between
    > > > > > > > > tick_nohz_enter_idle() and tick_nohz_exit_idle() calls, the arch
    > > > > > > > > must instead call the new *_norcu() version such that the arch doesn't
    > > > > > > > > need to call rcu_idle_enter() and rcu_idle_exit().
    > > > > > > >
    > > > > > > > The _norcu names confused me a bit. At first, I thought they meant
    > > > > > > > "idle but not RCU idle, so you can use RCU", but from re-reading the
    > > > > > > > commit message, apparently they mean "idle and RCU idle, so don't use
    > > > > > > > RCU". What about something like _forbid_rcu instead? Or,
    > > > > > > > alternatively, why not just go ahead and separate the two types of idle
    > > > > > > > entirely rather than introducing the _norcu variants first?
    > > > > > >
    > > > > > > Or tick_nohz_idle_enter_rcu_stop() and tick_nohz_idle_exit_rcu_restart()?
    > > > > > >
    > > > > > > Sounds clear but too long. May be we can shorten the tick_nohz thing in the
    > > > > > > beginning.
    > > > > >
    > > > > > How about tick_nohz_rcu_idle_enter() vs. tick_nohz_idle_enter() on
    > > > > > entry to the idle loop and tick_nohz_rcu_idle_exit() vs
    > > > > > tick_nohz_idle_exit() on exit?
    > > > > >
    > > > > > That said, I don't feel all that strongly on this naming topic.
    > > > >
    > > > > Mostly I think that since this series tries to separate the concepts of
    > > > > "idle nohz" and "rcu extended quiescent state", we should end up with
    > > > > two entirely separate functions delimiting those two, without any
    > > > > functions that poke both with correspondingly complex compound names.
    > > >
    > > > Having four API members rather than the current six does seem quite
    > > > attractive to me. Frederic, any reason why this approach won't work?
    > >
    > > The approach I took might sound silly but it's mostly an optimization:
    > >
    > > I did the *_norcu() variant mostly to be able to keep rcu_idle_enter()
    > > call under the same local_irq_disable() section.
    > >
    > > This way we can't have an interrupt in between that can needlessly perform
    > > RCU work (and trigger the softirq in the worst case), delaying the point
    > > where we actually put the CPU to sleep.
    >
    > But we have to tolerate this sort of thing on some architectures (x86
    > and Power) in order to allow idle-task use of RCU read-side primitives,
    > right?
    >
    > So consolidating from six to four APIs doesn't expand the overall state
    > space.

    Well, we tolerate that, the two more APIs are there for optimization, not
    to provide correctness.
    But if you want me to remove the optimization and keep only the four APIs I can do it.


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