Date:	Thu, 6 Feb 2014 17:44:10 +0530
From:	Gautham R Shenoy <ego@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>
To:	"Srivatsa S. Bhat" <srivatsa.bhat@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>
Cc:	ego@...ux.vnet.ibm.com, paulus@...ba.org, oleg@...hat.com,
	rusty@...tcorp.com.au, peterz@...radead.org, tglx@...utronix.de,
	akpm@...ux-foundation.org, mingo@...nel.org,
	paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com, tj@...nel.org, walken@...gle.com,
	linux@....linux.org.uk, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 00/51] CPU hotplug: Fix issues with callback registration

On Thu, Feb 06, 2014 at 04:34:33PM +0530, Srivatsa S. Bhat wrote:
> > 
> > CPU_POST_DEAD notification, is invoked with the cpu_hotplug.lock
> > dropped. This was necessary for subsystems which would be waiting for
> > some other thread to finish some work, and that other thread could
> > invoke get_online_cpus(). If CPU_POST_DEAD notification were issued
> > without dropping the cpu_hotplug.lock, this would lead to a deadlock
> > as the notifier would be left stuck waiting for the thread which is
> > blocked in get_online_cpus().
> > 
> > It was introduced to ensure that multithreaded workqueues can safely
> > use get_online_cpus() [https://lkml.org/lkml/2008/6/29/121].
> > 
> > As of now, only two subsystems use this notification and workqueues is
> > _not_ one of them!
> >   * arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mcheck/mce.c:mce_cpu_callback()
> >   * drivers/cpufreq/cpufreq.c:cpufreq_cpu_callback()
> > I haven't yet audited these two cases to see if they really need this
> > to be handled in CPU_POST_DEAD or if they can be handled in CPU_DEAD.
> > 
> 
> Well, cpufreq had a legitimate need to use POST_DEAD to avoid the
> deadlock described in commit 1aee40ac9c. However, there had been some
> discussion some time ago about reorganizing the cpufreq's hotplug callback
> so as to move most (but not all) of its work outside of POST_DEAD [1].
> But as it stands, I don't think it would be easy to totally get rid of
> cpufreq's dependence on the POST_DEAD notifier.
>

Right, I see the reason why cpufreq needs POST_DEAD.
 
> Besides, I think its good to retain the POST_DEAD notifier option in
> the CPU hotplug core code. It has come handy several times to fix hard
> deadlock issues.
> 

I know. I am not denying the usefulness of POST_DEAD. But the fact
that some of the CPU_* notifiers are invoked with the cpu_hotplug.lock
held while CPU_POST_DEAD is invoked with the lock dropped looks a bit
asymmetrical. At the moment I cannot think of a simpler alternative.


> > Also can we have an alternate API, something like
> > cpu_hotplug_register_begin/end() instead of reusing
> > cpu_maps_update_begin/end() for this usage, since in most of the
> > patches that follow, we're not touching the any of the cpu_*_maps!
> > 
> 
> Yes, the function names cpu_maps_update_begin/end() don't really suit
> the kind of usage I'm proposing in this patchset, and hence is kind of
> a misnomer. For better readability, I'm thinking of defining a macro
> such as say, cpu_hotplug_notifier_lock()/unlock() that redirects to
> cpu_maps_update_begin/end() respectively. That way, we can export just
> those former symbols for use by modules, and thereby the code would look
> more intuitive, like this:
> 
> 	cpu_hotplug_notifier_lock();
> 
> 	for_each_online_cpu(cpu)
> 		init_cpu(cpu);
> 
> 	/* This doesn't take the cpu_add_remove_lock */
> 	__register_cpu_notifier(&foobar_cpu_notifier);
> 
> 	cpu_hotplug_notifier_unlock();
> 
> What do you think?

Sounds good.
> 
> Regards,
> Srivatsa S. Bhat
> 

Thanks and Regards
gautham.

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