linux-kernel - [PATCH] ksoftirqd: Enable IRQs and call cond

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Date:	Tue, 13 Jan 2015 13:16:18 -0800
From:	Calvin Owens <calvinowens@...com>
To:	"Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>
CC:	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Joe Perches <joe@...ches.com>,
	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
	<linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>, <kernel-team@...com>,
	<calvinowens@...com>
Subject: [PATCH] ksoftirqd: Enable IRQs and call cond_resched() before poking
 RCU

While debugging an issue with excessive softirq usage, I encountered the
following note in commit 3e339b5dae24a706 ("softirq: Use hotplug thread
infrastructure"):

    [ paulmck: Call rcu_note_context_switch() with interrupts enabled. ]

...but despite this note, the patch still calls RCU with IRQs disabled.

This seemingly innocuous change caused a significant regression in softirq
CPU usage on the sending side of a large TCP transfer (~1 GB/s): when
introducing 0.01% packet loss, the softirq usage would jump to around 25%,
spiking as high as 50%. Before the change, the usage would never exceed 5%.

Moving the call to rcu_note_context_switch() after the cond_sched() call,
as it was originally before the hotplug patch, completely eliminated this
problem.

Signed-off-by: Calvin Owens <calvinowens@...com>
Cc: stable@...r.kernel.org
---
This version includes the "cpu" argument to rcu_note_context_switch() in
order to apply cleanly to stable kernels. It will need to be removed to
apply to 3.18+ and 3.19 (upstream commit 38200cf2 removed the argument).

 kernel/softirq.c | 6 +++++-
 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/kernel/softirq.c b/kernel/softirq.c
index 501baa9..9e787d8 100644
--- a/kernel/softirq.c
+++ b/kernel/softirq.c
@@ -656,9 +656,13 @@ static void run_ksoftirqd(unsigned int cpu)
 		 * in the task stack here.
 		 */
 		__do_softirq();
-		rcu_note_context_switch(cpu);
 		local_irq_enable();
 		cond_resched();
+
+		preempt_disable();
+		rcu_note_context_switch(cpu);
+		preempt_enable();
+
 		return;
 	}
 	local_irq_enable();
-- 
2.1.1

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