linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v2 1/4] nmi_backtrace: add more trigger_*_cpu

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Date:	Thu, 17 Mar 2016 23:38:21 +0100
From:	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>
To:	Chris Metcalf <cmetcalf@...lanox.com>
Cc:	Russell King <linux@....linux.org.uk>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Aaron Tomlin <atomlin@...hat.com>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>, Andrew Morton <akpm@...l.org>,
	Daniel Thompson <daniel.thompson@...aro.org>, x86@...nel.org,
	linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	Paul McKenney <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 1/4] nmi_backtrace: add more trigger_*_cpu_backtrace()
 methods

On Thu, Mar 17, 2016 at 06:31:44PM -0400, Chris Metcalf wrote:
> On 3/17/2016 3:36 PM, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> >On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 01:02:10PM -0400, Chris Metcalf wrote:
> >>Currently you can only request a backtrace of either all cpus, or
> >>all cpus but yourself.  It can also be helpful to request a remote
> >>backtrace of a single cpu, and since we want that, the logical
> >>extension is to support a cpumask as the underlying primitive.
> >>
> >>This change modifies the existing lib/nmi_backtrace.c code to take
> >>a cpumask as its basic primitive, and modifies the linux/nmi.h code
> >>to use either the old "all/all_but_self" arch methods, or the new
> >>"cpumask" method, depending on which is available.
> >>
> >>The existing clients of nmi_backtrace (arm and x86) are converted
> >>to using the new cpumask approach in this change.
> >So the past days I've been staring at RCU stall warns, and they can use
> >a little of this. Their remote stack unwinds are less than useful.
> 
> Were you suggesting this as an improvement for a possible v3, or just a
> kind of implicit ack of the patch series?  Thanks!

A suggestion more like. I've not actually looked at the 4th patch.

I'll try and fold the patches into the runs I do tomorrow, I'm sure to
trigger lots of fail. Maybe I'll even do that RCU patch.