linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] tasks: Extract rcu

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Date:   Thu, 16 Feb 2023 09:04:59 +0100
From:   Oleg Nesterov <oleg@...hat.com>
To:     David Vernet <void@...ifault.com>
Cc:     mingo@...hat.com, peterz@...radead.org, juri.lelli@...hat.com,
        vincent.guittot@...aro.org, rostedt@...dmis.org,
        bsegall@...gle.com, mgorman@...e.de, bristot@...hat.com,
        vschneid@...hat.com, kernel-team@...a.com,
        torvalds@...ux-foundation.org, ebiederm@...ssion.com,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] tasks: Extract rcu_users out of union

I won't argue with this patch, but I can't understand the changelog...

On 02/15, David Vernet wrote:
>
> Similarly, in sched_ext, schedulers are using integer pids to remember
> tasks, and then looking them up with find_task_by_pid_ns(). This is
> slow, error prone, and adds complexity. It would be more convenient and
> performant if BPF schedulers could instead store tasks directly in maps,
> and then leverage RCU to ensure they can be safely accessed with low
> overhead.

To simplify, suppose we have

	int global_pid;

	void func(void)
	{
		rcu_read_lock();
		task = find_task_by_pid(global_pid);
		do_something(task);
		rcu_read_unlock();
	}

Could you explain how exactly can this patch help to turn global_pid into
"task_struct *" ? Why do you need to increment task->rcu_users ?

>    a task that's successfully looked
>    up in e.g. the pid_list with find_task_by_pid_ns(), can always have a
>    'usage' reference acquired on them, as it's guaranteed to be >
>    0 until after the next gp.

Yes. So it seems you need another key-to-task_struct map with rcu-safe
lookup/get and thus the add() method needs inc_not_zero(task->rcu_users) ?

I am just curious,

Oleg.