linux-stable/kernel/time
Paul E. McKenney aa9b16306e rcu: Precompute RCU_FAST_NO_HZ timer offsets
When a CPU is entering dyntick-idle mode, tick_nohz_stop_sched_tick()
calls rcu_needs_cpu() see if RCU needs that CPU, and, if not, computes the
next wakeup time based on the timer wheels.  Only later, when actually
entering the idle loop, rcu_prepare_for_idle() will be invoked.  In some
cases, rcu_prepare_for_idle() will post timers to wake the CPU back up.
But all for naught: The next wakeup time for the CPU has already been
computed, and posting a timer afterwards does not force that wakeup
time to be recomputed.  This means that rcu_prepare_for_idle()'s have
no effect.

This is not a problem on a busy system because something else will wake
up the CPU soon enough.  However, on lightly loaded systems, the CPU
might stay asleep for a considerable length of time.  If that CPU has
a callback that the rest of the system is waiting on, the system might
run very slowly or (in theory) even hang.

This commit avoids this problem by having rcu_needs_cpu() give
tick_nohz_stop_sched_tick() an estimate of when RCU will need the CPU
to wake back up, which tick_nohz_stop_sched_tick() takes into account
when programming the CPU's wakeup time.  An alternative approach is
for rcu_prepare_for_idle() to use hrtimers instead of normal timers,
but timers are much more efficient than are hrtimers for frequently
and repeatedly posting and cancelling a given timer, which is exactly
what RCU_FAST_NO_HZ does.

Reported-by: Pascal Chapperon <pascal.chapperon@wanadoo.fr>
Reported-by: Heiko Carstens <heiko.carstens@de.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paul.mckenney@linaro.org>
Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Tested-by: Heiko Carstens <heiko.carstens@de.ibm.com>
Tested-by: Pascal Chapperon <pascal.chapperon@wanadoo.fr>
2012-06-06 20:43:28 -07:00
..
alarmtimer.c alarmtimer: Provide accessor to alarmtimer rtc device 2012-04-20 14:56:36 -07:00
clockevents.c Revert "clockevents: Set noop handler in clockevents_exchange_device()" 2011-12-30 13:24:40 -08:00
clocksource.c kernel-time: fix s/then/than/ spelling errors 2012-03-23 16:49:21 -07:00
jiffies.c Fix common misspellings 2011-03-31 11:26:23 -03:00
Kconfig timers: Fixup the Kconfig consolidation fallout 2012-05-21 23:43:46 +02:00
Makefile timers: Introduce in-kernel alarm-timer interface 2011-04-26 14:01:44 -07:00
ntp.c ntp: Fix a stale comment and a few stray newlines. 2012-05-21 16:16:56 -07:00
posix-clock.c kernel: Fix files explicitly needing EXPORT_SYMBOL infrastructure 2011-10-31 19:30:05 -04:00
tick-broadcast.c tick: Fix the spurious broadcast timer ticks after resume 2012-04-19 21:27:50 +02:00
tick-common.c clockevents: Make minimum delay adjustments configurable 2011-09-08 11:10:56 +02:00
tick-internal.h clockevents: Make minimum delay adjustments configurable 2011-09-08 11:10:56 +02:00
tick-oneshot.c clockevents: Make minimum delay adjustments configurable 2011-09-08 11:10:56 +02:00
tick-sched.c rcu: Precompute RCU_FAST_NO_HZ timer offsets 2012-06-06 20:43:28 -07:00
timecompare.c time: Use ARRAY_SIZE macro in timecompare.c 2010-10-21 17:30:06 +02:00
timeconv.c time: add function to convert between calendar time and broken-down time for universal use 2009-09-24 07:20:56 -07:00
timekeeping.c timekeeping: Fix a few minor newline issues. 2012-05-21 16:20:32 -07:00
timer_list.c timer debug: Hide kernel addresses via %pK in /proc/timer_list 2011-02-12 14:11:56 +01:00
timer_stats.c locking, timer_stats: Annotate table_lock as raw 2011-09-13 11:12:00 +02:00