When to use a freezeable workqueue?

When to use a freezeable workqueue?

[Stefan Richter]

In which situations is create_freezeable_workqueue() to be preferred
over create_singlethread_workqueue()?

Is a freezable worqueue preferable whenever the worker thread /can/ be
frozen, or is it only to be used if the thread /must/ be frozen during
suspend?

Thanks,
-- 
Stefan Richter
-=====-=-=== =--- -==--
http://arcgraph.de/sr/

Re: When to use a freezeable workqueue?

[Rafael J. Wysocki]

On Sunday, 12 August 2007 10:11, Stefan Richter wrote:
> In which situations is create_freezeable_workqueue() to be preferred
> over create_singlethread_workqueue()?
> 
> Is a freezable worqueue preferable whenever the worker thread /can/ be
> frozen, or is it only to be used if the thread /must/ be frozen during
> suspend?

The latter, IMO.

Generally, if you want it to be frozen.

Greetings,
Rafael

Re: [linux-pm] Re: When to use a freezeable workqueue?

[Alan Stern]

On Mon, 13 Aug 2007, Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:

> On Sunday, 12 August 2007 10:11, Stefan Richter wrote:
> > In which situations is create_freezeable_workqueue() to be preferred
> > over create_singlethread_workqueue()?
> > 
> > Is a freezable worqueue preferable whenever the worker thread /can/ be
> > frozen, or is it only to be used if the thread /must/ be frozen during
> > suspend?
> 
> The latter, IMO.
> 
> Generally, if you want it to be frozen.

A good example of a reason for making a workqueue freezable is that the 
workqueue contains entries which would cause a suspended device to be 
resumed.  Obviously you don't want such things to happen while the 
system is going to sleep.  A little less obviously, there might also be 
problems if such a routine ran while the system was waking up.

Another reason might be that the workqueue contains entries which would
try to register or unregister a device.  Such actions aren't a good
idea at times when the PM core is iterating through a list of all
devices in order to suspend or resume them.  And in the future such
actions may block, effectively freezing the workqueue anyway -- which
could be troublesome if you don't want the workqueue to be frozen!

Alan Stern