linux-kernel - Re: [RFC] workqueue: avoiding unbounded wq on isolated CPUs by default

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Date:	Sat, 18 Jul 2015 17:48:56 +0200
From:	Mike Galbraith <umgwanakikbuti@...il.com>
To:	Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@...il.com>
Cc:	Tejun Heo <tj@...nel.org>,
	Daniel Bristot de Oliveira <bristot@...hat.com>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Lai Jiangshan <jiangshanlai@...il.com>,
	Rik van Riel <riel@...hat.com>,
	"Luis Claudio R. Goncalves" <lclaudio@...g.org>
Subject: Re: [RFC] workqueue: avoiding unbounded wq on isolated CPUs by
 default

On Sat, 2015-07-18 at 15:36 +0200, Frederic Weisbecker wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 07:15:48PM +0200, Mike Galbraith wrote:
> > On Fri, 2015-07-17 at 11:27 -0400, Tejun Heo wrote:
> > 
> > > I'm just curious whether there was any specific reason we didn't do
> > > this before (ISTR people discussing it back then too).
> > 
> > I'm dead set against all this auto-presume nonsense fwtw  Allocating a
> > pool of no_hz_full _capable_ CPUs should not entice the kernel to make
> > any rash assumptions.  Let users do the button poking, they know what
> > they want, and when they want it.
> 
> We need to make a choice then. Either we do all the affinity tuning from
> userspace with a common tool, which is what I had wished before everybody
> asked for pre-settings.

Giving userspace what they need to do what they want seems right to me.

> Or we do it in the kernel, now we should define some kind of CONFIG_ISOLATION
> to make that proper and rule the various kinds of isolation people are
> interested in.
> 
> But we can't leave it half-way like it is currently with everything preset on
> top of nohz: rcu nocb mask, watchdog mask, cpu_isolation_map and exclude workqueue.

Yeah.  Hell, maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe people really want this rigidity
and hand-holding by the kernel, but it just seems dainbramaged to me.
ATM, you pay a high price (the overhead) for the capability, but until
that auto-assume isolcpus landed, those CPUs weren't forever more
specialists, they were CPUs with an extra (costly) capability, could be
disconnected/reconnected to load balancing on the fly, and used however
the user saw fit.

I can imagine an auto-everything kernel having a bit of trouble with an
SGI beast from hell.  Too bad I don't have access to one, I'd try to
boot a tune for maximum hand holding kernel.

	-Mike

--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/