linux-kernel - [PATCH v2] rcu: Reduce synchronize_rcu() latency by reporting GP kthread's CPU QS early

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Message-Id: <20251223034630.1092719-1-joelagnelf@nvidia.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2025 22:46:29 -0500
From: Joel Fernandes <joelagnelf@...dia.com>
To: linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	"Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...nel.org>,
	Frederic Weisbecker <frederic@...nel.org>,
	Neeraj Upadhyay <neeraj.upadhyay@...nel.org>,
	Joel Fernandes <joelagnelf@...dia.com>,
	Josh Triplett <josh@...htriplett.org>,
	Boqun Feng <boqun.feng@...il.com>,
	Uladzislau Rezki <urezki@...il.com>,
	Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>,
	Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@...icios.com>,
	Lai Jiangshan <jiangshanlai@...il.com>,
	Zqiang <qiang.zhang@...ux.dev>
Cc: rcu@...r.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH v2] rcu: Reduce synchronize_rcu() latency by reporting GP kthread's CPU QS early

The RCU grace period mechanism uses a two-phase FQS (Force Quiescent
State) design where the first FQS saves dyntick-idle snapshots and
the second FQS compares them. This results in long and unnecessary latency
for synchronize_rcu() on idle systems (two FQS waits of ~3ms each with
1000HZ) whenever one FQS wait sufficed.

Some investigations showed that the GP kthread's CPU is the holdout CPU
a lot of times after the first FQS as - it cannot be detected as "idle"
because it's actively running the FQS scan in the GP kthread.

Therefore, at the end of rcu_gp_init(), immediately report a quiescent
state for the GP kthread's CPU using rcu_qs() + rcu_report_qs_rdp(). The
GP kthread cannot be in an RCU read-side critical section while running
GP initialization, so this is safe and results in significant latency
improvements.

I benchmarked 100 synchronize_rcu() calls with 32 CPUs, 10 runs each
showing significant latency improvements (default settings for fqs jiffies):

Baseline (without fix):
| Run | Mean      | Min      | Max       |
|-----|-----------|----------|-----------|
| 1   | 10.088 ms | 9.989 ms | 18.848 ms |
| 2   | 10.064 ms | 9.982 ms | 16.470 ms |
| 3   | 10.051 ms | 9.988 ms | 15.113 ms |
| 4   | 10.125 ms | 9.929 ms | 22.411 ms |
| 5   |  8.695 ms | 5.996 ms | 15.471 ms |
| 6   | 10.157 ms | 9.977 ms | 25.723 ms |
| 7   | 10.102 ms | 9.990 ms | 20.224 ms |
| 8   |  8.050 ms | 5.985 ms | 10.007 ms |
| 9   | 10.059 ms | 9.978 ms | 15.934 ms |
| 10  | 10.077 ms | 9.984 ms | 17.703 ms |

With fix:
| Run | Mean     | Min      | Max       |
|-----|----------|----------|-----------|
| 1   | 6.027 ms | 5.915 ms |  8.589 ms |
| 2   | 6.032 ms | 5.984 ms |  9.241 ms |
| 3   | 6.010 ms | 5.986 ms |  7.004 ms |
| 4   | 6.076 ms | 5.993 ms | 10.001 ms |
| 5   | 6.084 ms | 5.893 ms | 10.250 ms |
| 6   | 6.034 ms | 5.908 ms |  9.456 ms |
| 7   | 6.051 ms | 5.993 ms | 10.000 ms |
| 8   | 6.057 ms | 5.941 ms | 10.001 ms |
| 9   | 6.016 ms | 5.927 ms |  7.540 ms |
| 10  | 6.036 ms | 5.993 ms |  9.579 ms |

Summary:
- Mean latency: 9.75 ms -> 6.04 ms (38% improvement)
- Max latency:  25.72 ms -> 10.25 ms (60% improvement)

Tested rcutorture TREE and SRCU configurations.

[apply paulmck feedack on moving logic to rcu_gp_init()]

Signed-off-by: Joel Fernandes <joelagnelf@...dia.com>
---
 kernel/rcu/tree.c | 12 ++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 12 insertions(+)

diff --git a/kernel/rcu/tree.c b/kernel/rcu/tree.c
index 8293bae1dec1..0c7710caf041 100644
--- a/kernel/rcu/tree.c
+++ b/kernel/rcu/tree.c
@@ -160,6 +160,7 @@ static void rcu_report_qs_rnp(unsigned long mask, struct rcu_node *rnp,
 			      unsigned long gps, unsigned long flags);
 static void invoke_rcu_core(void);
 static void rcu_report_exp_rdp(struct rcu_data *rdp);
+static void rcu_report_qs_rdp(struct rcu_data *rdp);
 static void check_cb_ovld_locked(struct rcu_data *rdp, struct rcu_node *rnp);
 static bool rcu_rdp_is_offloaded(struct rcu_data *rdp);
 static bool rcu_rdp_cpu_online(struct rcu_data *rdp);
@@ -1983,6 +1984,17 @@ static noinline_for_stack bool rcu_gp_init(void)
 	if (IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_RCU_STRICT_GRACE_PERIOD))
 		on_each_cpu(rcu_strict_gp_boundary, NULL, 0);
 
+	/*
+	 * Immediately report QS for the GP kthread's CPU. The GP kthread
+	 * cannot be in an RCU read-side critical section while running
+	 * the FQS scan. This eliminates the need for a second FQS wait
+	 * when all CPUs are idle.
+	 */
+	preempt_disable();
+	rcu_qs();
+	rcu_report_qs_rdp(this_cpu_ptr(&rcu_data));
+	preempt_enable();
+
 	return true;
 }
 
-- 
2.34.1