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authorMathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@polymtl.ca>2008-04-02 13:04:51 -0700
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2008-04-02 15:28:19 -0700
commit6496968e6cc3f01faafa63a5a28549a708539ac0 (patch)
treede0af9ad6750690d6815f3e263fe2bc188591fa8 /Documentation/watchdog
parent629c8b4cdb354518308663aff2f719e02f69ffbe (diff)
markers: use synchronize_sched()
Markers do not mix well with CONFIG_PREEMPT_RCU because it uses preempt_disable/enable() and not rcu_read_lock/unlock for minimal intrusiveness. We would need call_sched and sched_barrier primitives. Currently, the modification (connection and disconnection) of probes from markers requires changes to the data structure done in RCU-style : a new data structure is created, the pointer is changed atomically, a quiescent state is reached and then the old data structure is freed. The quiescent state is reached once all the currently running preempt_disable regions are done running. We use the call_rcu mechanism to execute kfree() after such quiescent state has been reached. However, the new CONFIG_PREEMPT_RCU version of call_rcu and rcu_barrier does not guarantee that all preempt_disable code regions have finished, hence the race. The "proper" way to do this is to use rcu_read_lock/unlock, but we don't want to use it to minimize intrusiveness on the traced system. (we do not want the marker code to call into much of the OS code, because it would quickly restrict what can and cannot be instrumented, such as the scheduler). The temporary fix, until we get call_rcu_sched and rcu_barrier_sched in mainline, is to use synchronize_sched before each call_rcu calls, so we wait for the quiescent state in the system call code path. It will slow down batch marker enable/disable, but will make sure the race is gone. Signed-off-by: Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@polymtl.ca> Acked-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/watchdog')
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