netdev - Re: [PATCH 2/3] softirq: avoid spurious stalls due to need

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Date:   Mon, 6 Mar 2023 00:00:24 +0100
From:   Frederic Weisbecker <frederic@...nel.org>
To:     "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...nel.org>
Cc:     Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        Jakub Kicinski <kuba@...nel.org>, peterz@...radead.org,
        jstultz@...gle.com, edumazet@...gle.com, netdev@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/3] softirq: avoid spurious stalls due to need_resched()

On Sun, Mar 05, 2023 at 02:42:11PM -0800, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 05, 2023 at 09:43:23PM +0100, Thomas Gleixner wrote:
> Indeed, as you well know, CONFIG_RCU_NOCB_CPU=y in combination with the
> rcutree.use_softirq kernel boot parameter in combination with either the
> nohz_full or rcu_nocbs kernel boot parameter and then the callbacks are
> invoked within separate kthreads so that the scheduler has full control.
> In addition, this dispenses with all of the heuristics that are otherwise
> necessary to avoid invoking too many callbacks in one shot.
> 
> Back in the day, I tried making this the default (with an eye towards
> making it the sole callback-execution scheme), but this resulted in
> some ugly performance regressions.  This was in part due to the extra
> synchronization required to queue a callback and in part due to the
> higher average cost of a wakeup compared to a raise_softirq().
> 
> So I changed to the current non-default arrangement.
> 
> And of course, you can do it halfway by booting kernel built with
> CONFIG_RCU_NOCB_CPU=n with the rcutree.use_softirq kernel boot parameter.
> But then the callback-invocation-limit heuristics are still used, but
> this time to prevent callback invocation from preventing the CPU from
> reporting quiescent states.  But if this was the only case, simpler
> heuristics would suffice.
> 
> In short, it is not hard to make RCU avoid using softirq, but doing so
> is not without side effects.  ;-)

Right but note that, threaded or not, callbacks invocation happen
within a local_bh_disable() section, preventing other softirqs from running.

So this is still subject to the softirq per-CPU BKL.