linux-kernel - [PATCH v2 3/3] rcu: WQ_UNBOUND added to sync

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Message-ID: <20250919145040.290214-4-marco.crivellari@suse.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2025 16:50:39 +0200
From: Marco Crivellari <marco.crivellari@...e.com>
To: linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	rcu@...r.kernel.org
Cc: Tejun Heo <tj@...nel.org>,
	Lai Jiangshan <jiangshanlai@...il.com>,
	Frederic Weisbecker <frederic@...nel.org>,
	Sebastian Andrzej Siewior <bigeasy@...utronix.de>,
	Marco Crivellari <marco.crivellari@...e.com>,
	Michal Hocko <mhocko@...e.com>,
	Jens Axboe <axboe@...nel.dk>,
	"Paul E . McKenney" <paulmck@...nel.org>,
	Neeraj Upadhyay <neeraj.upadhyay@...nel.org>,
	Joel Fernandes <joel@...lfernandes.org>,
	Josh Triplett <josh@...htriplett.org>,
	Boqun Feng <boqun.feng@...il.com>,
	Uladzislau Rezki <urezki@...il.com>
Subject: [PATCH v2 3/3] rcu: WQ_UNBOUND added to sync_wq workqueue

Currently if a user enqueue a work item using schedule_delayed_work() the
used wq is "system_wq" (per-cpu wq) while queue_delayed_work() use
WORK_CPU_UNBOUND (used when a cpu is not specified). The same applies to
schedule_work() that is using system_wq and queue_work(), that makes use
again of WORK_CPU_UNBOUND.
This lack of consistentcy cannot be addressed without refactoring the API.

alloc_workqueue() treats all queues as per-CPU by default, while unbound
workqueues must opt-in via WQ_UNBOUND.

This default is suboptimal: most workloads benefit from unbound queues,
allowing the scheduler to place worker threads where they’re needed and
reducing noise when CPUs are isolated.

This change add the WQ_UNBOUND flag to sync_wq, to make explicit this
workqueue can be unbound and that it does not benefit from per-cpu work.

Once migration is complete, WQ_UNBOUND can be removed and unbound will
become the implicit default.

With the introduction of the WQ_PERCPU flag (equivalent to !WQ_UNBOUND),
any alloc_workqueue() caller that doesn’t explicitly specify WQ_UNBOUND
must now use WQ_PERCPU.

Suggested-by: Tejun Heo <tj@...nel.org>
Signed-off-by: Marco Crivellari <marco.crivellari@...e.com>
---
 kernel/rcu/tree.c | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/kernel/rcu/tree.c b/kernel/rcu/tree.c
index 4f3175df5999..7137723f8f95 100644
--- a/kernel/rcu/tree.c
+++ b/kernel/rcu/tree.c
@@ -4888,7 +4888,7 @@ void __init rcu_init(void)
 	rcu_gp_wq = alloc_workqueue("rcu_gp", WQ_MEM_RECLAIM | WQ_PERCPU, 0);
 	WARN_ON(!rcu_gp_wq);

-	sync_wq = alloc_workqueue("sync_wq", WQ_MEM_RECLAIM, 0);
+	sync_wq = alloc_workqueue("sync_wq", WQ_MEM_RECLAIM | WQ_UNBOUND, 0);
 	WARN_ON(!sync_wq);

 	/* Respect if explicitly disabled via a boot parameter. */
-- 
2.51.0