On 14/09/20 21:42, Thomas Gleixner wrote:
> CONFIG_PREEMPT_COUNT is now unconditionally enabled and will be
> removed. Cleanup the leftovers before doing so.
>
> Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx(a)linutronix.de>
> Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo(a)kernel.org>
> Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz(a)infradead.org>
> Cc: Juri Lelli <juri.lelli(a)redhat.com>
> Cc: Vincent Guittot <vincent.guittot(a)linaro.org>
> Cc: Dietmar Eggemann <dietmar.eggemann(a)arm.com>
> Cc: Steven Rostedt <rostedt(a)goodmis.org>
> Cc: Ben Segall <bsegall(a)google.com>
> Cc: Mel Gorman <mgorman(a)suse.de>
> Cc: Daniel Bristot de Oliveira <bristot(a)redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: Valentin Schneider <valentin.schneider(a)arm.com>
On Mon, Sep 14, 2020 at 01:59:15PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 14, 2020 at 1:45 PM Thomas Gleixner <tglx(a)linutronix.de> wrote:
> >
> > Recently merged code does:
> >
> > gfp = preemptible() ? GFP_KERNEL : GFP_ATOMIC;
> >
> > Looks obviously correct, except for the fact that preemptible() is
> > unconditionally false for CONFIF_PREEMPT_COUNT=n, i.e. all allocations in
> > that code use GFP_ATOMIC on such kernels.
>
> I don't think this is a good reason to entirely get rid of the no-preempt thing.
>
> The above is just garbage. It's bogus. You can't do it.
>
> Blaming the no-preempt code for this bug is extremely unfair, imho.
>
> And the no-preempt code does help make for much better code generation
> for simple spinlocks.
>
> Where is that horribly buggy recent code? It's not in that exact
> format, certainly, since 'grep' doesn't find it.
It would be convenient for that "gfp =" code to work, as this would
allow better cache locality while invoking RCU callbacks, and would
further provide better robustness to callback floods. The full story
is quite long, but here are alternatives have not yet been proven to be
abject failures:
1. Use workqueues to do the allocations in a clean context.
While waiting for the allocations, the callbacks are queued
in the old cache-busting manner. This functions correctly,
but in the meantime (which on busy systems can be some time)
the cache locality and robustness are lost.
2. Provide the ability to allocate memory in raw atomic context.
This is extremely effective, especially when used in combination
with #1 above, but as you might suspect, the MM guys don't like
it much.
In contrast, with Thomas's patch series, call_rcu() and kvfree_rcu()
could just look at preemptible() to see whether or not it was safe to
allocate memory, even in !PREEMPT kernels -- and in the common case,
it almost always would be safe. It is quite possible that this approach
would work in isolation, or failing that, that adding #1 above would do
the trick.
I understand that this is all very hand-wavy, and I do apologize for that.
If you really want the full sad story with performance numbers and the
works, let me know!
Thanx, Paul
Hi,
This fixes a couple of minor aggravating factors that I ran across while
trying to do some changes in selftests/vm. These are simple things, but
like most things with GNU Make, it's rarely obvious what's wrong until
you understand *the entire Makefile and all of its includes*.
So while there is, of course, joy in learning those details, I thought I'd
fix these little things, so as to allow others to skip out on the Joy if
they so choose. :)
First of all, if you have an item (let's choose userfaultfd for an
example) that fails to build, you might do this:
$ make -j32
# ...you observe a failed item in the threaded output
# OK, let's get a closer look
$ make
# ...but now the build quietly "succeeds".
That's what Patch 0001 fixes.
Second, if you instead attempt this approach for your closer look (a casual
mistake, as it's not supported):
$ make userfaultfd
# ...userfaultfd fails to link, due to incomplete LDLIBS
That's what Patch 0002 fixes.
John Hubbard (2):
selftests/vm: fix false build success on the second and later attempts
selftests/vm: fix incorrect gcc invocation in some cases
tools/testing/selftests/vm/Makefile | 17 +++++++++++++++++
1 file changed, 17 insertions(+)
--
2.28.0