linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v6 00/29] context_tracking,x86: Defer some IPIs until a user->kernel transition

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Message-ID: <aQuNdOEmPYkI03my@localhost.localdomain>
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2025 18:46:28 +0100
From: Frederic Weisbecker <frederic@...nel.org>
To: Valentin Schneider <vschneid@...hat.com>
Cc: Phil Auld <pauld@...hat.com>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-mm@...ck.org, rcu@...r.kernel.org, x86@...nel.org,
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Subject: Re: [PATCH v6 00/29] context_tracking,x86: Defer some IPIs until a
 user->kernel transition

Le Wed, Nov 05, 2025 at 05:24:29PM +0100, Valentin Schneider a écrit :
> On 29/10/25 18:15, Frederic Weisbecker wrote:
> > Le Wed, Oct 29, 2025 at 11:32:58AM +0100, Valentin Schneider a écrit :
> >> I need to have a think about that one; one pain point I see is the context
> >> tracking work has to be NMI safe since e.g. an NMI can take us out of
> >> userspace. Another is that NOHZ-full CPUs need to be special cased in the
> >> stop machine queueing / completion.
> >>
> >> /me goes fetch a new notebook
> >
> > Something like the below (untested) ?
> >
> 
> Some minor nits below but otherwise that looks promising.
> 
> One problem I'm having however is reasoning about the danger zone; what
> forbidden actions could a NO_HZ_FULL CPU take when entering the kernel
> while take_cpu_down() is happening?
> 
> I'm actually not familiar with why we actually use stop_machine() for CPU
> hotplug; I see things like CPUHP_AP_SMPCFD_DYING::smpcfd_dying_cpu() or
> CPUHP_AP_TICK_DYING::tick_cpu_dying() expect other CPUs to be patiently
> spinning in multi_cpu_stop(), and I *think* nothing in the entry code up to
> context_tracking entry would disrupt that, but it's not a small thing to
> reason about.
> 
> AFAICT we need to reason about every .teardown callback from
> CPUHP_TEARDOWN_CPU to CPUHP_AP_OFFLINE and their explicit & implicit
> dependencies on other CPUs being STOP'd.

You're raising a very interesting question. The initial point of stop_machine()
is to synchronize this:

    set_cpu_online(cpu, 0)
    migrate timers;
    migrate hrtimers;
    flush IPIs;
    etc...

against this pattern:

    preempt_disable()
    if (cpu_online(cpu))
        queue something; // could be timer, IPI, etc...
    preempt_enable()

There have been attempts:

      https://lore.kernel.org/all/20241218171531.2217275-1-costa.shul@redhat.com/

And really it should be fine to just do:

    set_cpu_online(cpu, 0)
    synchronize_rcu()
    migrate / flush stuff

Probably we should try that instead of the busy loop I proposed
which only papers over the problem.

Of course there are other assumptions. For example the tick
timekeeper is migrated easily knowing that all online CPUs are
not idle (cf: tick_cpu_dying()). So I expect a few traps, with RCU
for example and indeed all these hotplug callbacks must be audited
one by one.

I'm not entirely unfamiliar with many of them. Let me see what I can do...

Thanks.

-- 
Frederic Weisbecker
SUSE Labs