mirror of https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Cc: mingo@elte.hu, laijs@cn.fujitsu.com, dipankar@in.ibm.com,
	akpm@linux-foundation.org, mathieu.desnoyers@polymtl.ca,
	josh@joshtriplett.org, niv@us.ibm.com, tglx@linutronix.de,
	peterz@infradead.org, rostedt@goodmis.org,
	Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu, dhowells@redhat.com,
	eric.dumazet@gmail.com,
	"Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Subject: [PATCH tip/core/rcu 1/8] rcu: upgrade stallwarn.txt documentation for CPU-bound RT processes
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2010 17:50:46 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <1285203053-22068-1-git-send-email-paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20100923005033.GA22006@linux.vnet.ibm.com>

CPU-bound real-time processes can cause RCU CPU stall warnings, and
much other trouble as well.  Document the fact that they can cause
RCU CPU stall warnings.

Suggested-by: Darren Hart <dvhltc@us.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
---
 Documentation/RCU/stallwarn.txt |   18 ++++++++++++++++++
 1 files changed, 18 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/RCU/stallwarn.txt b/Documentation/RCU/stallwarn.txt
index 44c6dcc..862c08e 100644
--- a/Documentation/RCU/stallwarn.txt
+++ b/Documentation/RCU/stallwarn.txt
@@ -80,6 +80,24 @@ o	A CPU looping with bottom halves disabled.  This condition can
 o	For !CONFIG_PREEMPT kernels, a CPU looping anywhere in the kernel
 	without invoking schedule().
 
+o	A CPU-bound real-time task in a CONFIG_PREEMPT kernel, which might
+	happen to preempt a low-priority task in the middle of an RCU
+	read-side critical section.   This is especially damaging if
+	that low-priority task is not permitted to run on any other CPU,
+	in which case the next RCU grace period can never complete, which
+	will eventually cause the system to run out of memory and hang.
+	While the system is in the process of running itself out of
+	memory, you might see stall-warning messages.
+
+o	A CPU-bound real-time task in a CONFIG_PREEMPT_RT kernel that
+	is running at a higher priority than the RCU softirq threads.
+	This will prevent RCU callbacks from ever being invoked,
+	and in a CONFIG_TREE_PREEMPT_RCU kernel will further prevent
+	RCU grace periods from ever completing.  Either way, the
+	system will eventually run out of memory and hang.  In the
+	CONFIG_TREE_PREEMPT_RCU case, you might see stall-warning
+	messages.
+
 o	A bug in the RCU implementation.
 
 o	A hardware failure.  This is quite unlikely, but has occurred
-- 
1.7.0.6


  reply	other threads:[~2010-09-23  0:51 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 11+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2010-09-23  0:50 [PATCH tip/core/rcu 0/8] random RCU fixes and updates Paul E. McKenney
2010-09-23  0:50 ` Paul E. McKenney [this message]
2010-09-23  0:50 ` [PATCH tip/core/rcu 2/8] rcu: performance fixes to TINY_PREEMPT_RCU callback checking Paul E. McKenney
2010-09-23  0:50 ` [PATCH tip/core/rcu 3/8] rcu: fix _oddness handling of verbose stall warnings Paul E. McKenney
2010-09-23  0:50 ` [PATCH tip/core/rcu 4/8] kernel: Removing undead ifdef CONFIG_DEBUG_LOCK_ALLOC Paul E. McKenney
2010-09-23  0:50 ` [PATCH tip/core/rcu 5/8] rcu: only one evaluation of arg in rcu_dereference_check() unless sparse Paul E. McKenney
2010-09-23 13:13   ` Arnd Bergmann
2010-09-23 17:23     ` Paul E. McKenney
2010-09-23  0:50 ` [PATCH tip/core/rcu 6/8] rcu: fix sparse errors in rcutorture.c Paul E. McKenney
2010-09-23  0:50 ` [PATCH tip/core/rcu 7/8] rcu: Add tracing data to support queueing models Paul E. McKenney
2010-09-23  0:50 ` [PATCH tip/core/rcu 8/8] rcu: Add advice to PROVE_RCU_REPEATEDLY kernel config parameter Paul E. McKenney

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=1285203053-22068-1-git-send-email-paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com \
    --to=paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com \
    --cc=Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu \
    --cc=akpm@linux-foundation.org \
    --cc=dhowells@redhat.com \
    --cc=dipankar@in.ibm.com \
    --cc=eric.dumazet@gmail.com \
    --cc=josh@joshtriplett.org \
    --cc=laijs@cn.fujitsu.com \
    --cc=linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org \
    --cc=mathieu.desnoyers@polymtl.ca \
    --cc=mingo@elte.hu \
    --cc=niv@us.ibm.com \
    --cc=peterz@infradead.org \
    --cc=rostedt@goodmis.org \
    --cc=tglx@linutronix.de \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox

all inboxes | Powered by JetHome®