netdev - Re: [PATCH] lockdep: annotate rcu_read

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Date:	Sat, 18 Aug 2007 15:03:37 -0700
From:	"Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>
To:	Corey Minyard <minyard@....org>
Cc:	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>, Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>,
	herbert@...dor.apana.org.au, 123.oleg@...il.com,
	netdev@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	David Miller <davem@...emloft.net>,
	Daniel Walker <dwalker@...sta.com>, josht@...ux.vnet.ibm.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH] lockdep: annotate rcu_read_{,un}lock()

On Fri, Aug 17, 2007 at 01:48:09PM -0500, Corey Minyard wrote:
> Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> >On Fri, Aug 17, 2007 at 09:56:45AM +0200, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> >  
> >>On Thu, 2007-08-16 at 09:01 -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> >>    
> >>>On Thu, Aug 16, 2007 at 04:25:07PM +0200, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> >>>      
> >>>>There seem to be some unbalanced rcu_read_{,un}lock() issues of late,
> >>>>how about doing something like this:
> >>>>        
> >>>This will break when rcu_read_lock() and rcu_read_unlock() are invoked
> >>>from NMI/SMI handlers -- the raw_local_irq_save() in lock_acquire() will
> >>>not mask NMIs or SMIs.
> >>>
> >>>One approach would be to check for being in an NMI/SMI handler, and
> >>>to avoid calling lock_acquire() and lock_release() in those cases.
> >>>      
> >>It seems:
> >>
> >>#define nmi_enter()		do { lockdep_off(); __irq_enter(); } while 
> >>(0)
> >>#define nmi_exit()		do { __irq_exit(); lockdep_on(); } while (0)
> >>
> >>Should make it all work out just fine. (for NMIs at least, /me fully
> >>ignorant of the workings of SMIs)
> >>    
> >
> >Very good point, at least for NMIs on i386 and x86_64.  Can't say that I
> >know much about SMIs myself.  Or about whatever equivalents to NMIs and
> >SMIs might exist on other platforms.  :-/  Of course, the other platforms
> >could be handled by making the RCU lockdep operate only on i386 and x86_64
> >if required.
> >
> >Corey, any advice on SMI handlers?  Is there something like nmi_enter()
> >and nmi_exit() that allows disabing lockdep?
> >  
> You will certainly need something like nmi_enter() and nmi_exit() for 
> SMIs, since they can occur at any time like NMIs.  As far as anything 
> else, you just have to be extremely careful and remember that it can 
> occur anyplace.  But you already know that :).

So we would need to create an smi_enter() and smi_exit() an place them
appropriately.  Any preferences?

> It would be nice if the PowerPC board vendors would tie watchdog 
> pretimeouts and some type of timer into the SMI input.  It would make 
> debugging certain problems much easier.  And all those Marvell bridge 
> chips have a watchdog pretimeout and I haven't seen any board vendor 
> wire it up :(.

Can't say that I have much influence over them, but I must agree
that debuggability is a very good thing!

						Thanx, Paul
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