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

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Message-Id: <20251223003039.59161-1-joelagnelf@nvidia.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2025 19:30:39 -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 RFC] 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 unncessary 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 start of the first FQS, 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
the FQS scan, so this is safe and results in significant tail latency
improvements.

I benchmarked 100 synchronize_rcu() calls, 6 runs each showing good tail
latency improvements per synchronize_rcu() call (default settings for fqs
jiffies):

Baseline (without fix):
| Run | Mean     | Min      | Max       |
|-----|----------|----------|-----------|
| 1   | 4.036 ms | 3.509 ms | 7.973 ms  |
| 2   | 4.049 ms | 3.904 ms | 8.003 ms  |
| 3   | 4.033 ms | 1.160 ms | 10.083 ms |
| 4   | 3.993 ms | 3.145 ms | 4.093 ms  |
| 5   | 3.988 ms | 2.675 ms | 4.123 ms  |
| 6   | 4.019 ms | 3.894 ms | 5.845 ms  |

With fix:
| Run | Mean     | Min      | Max      |
|-----|----------|----------|----------|
| 1   | 3.991 ms | 2.953 ms | 4.125 ms |
| 2   | 3.995 ms | 3.439 ms | 4.081 ms |
| 3   | 3.989 ms | 2.974 ms | 4.079 ms |
| 4   | 3.997 ms | 3.667 ms | 4.072 ms |
| 5   | 4.027 ms | 2.550 ms | 7.928 ms |
| 6   | 3.989 ms | 2.886 ms | 4.076 ms |

The fix reduces worst-case latency due to the second FQS wait not
running when not needed.

Tested rcutorture TREE and SRCU configurations.

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..c116ed7633d3 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);
@@ -2032,6 +2033,17 @@ static void rcu_gp_fqs(bool first_time)
 	}
 
 	if (first_time) {
+		/*
+		 * 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();
+
 		/* Collect dyntick-idle snapshots. */
 		force_qs_rnp(rcu_watching_snap_save);
 	} else {
-- 
2.34.1