tree 77cbce5ff479b3e70f95a29cc88ce50e025f9078
parent 3bf671af14d591ede9251acb0085e8017f3705e7
author Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de> 1342435355 +0000
committer Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de> 1344870066 +0200

rcu: Yield simpler

The rcu_yield() code is amazing. It's there to avoid starvation of the
system when lots of (boosting) work is to be done.

Now looking at the code it's functionality is:

 Make the thread SCHED_OTHER and very nice, i.e. get it out of the way
 Arm a timer with 2 ticks
 schedule()

Now if the system goes idle the rcu task returns, regains SCHED_FIFO
and plugs on. If the systems stays busy the timer fires and wakes a
per node kthread which in turn makes the per cpu thread SCHED_FIFO and
brings it back on the cpu. For the boosting thread the "make it FIFO"
bit is missing and it just runs some magic boost checks. Now this is a
lot of code with extra threads and complexity.

It's way simpler to let the tasks when they detect overload schedule
away for 2 ticks and defer the normal wakeup as long as they are in
yielded state and the cpu is not idle.

That solves the same problem and the only difference is that when the
cpu goes idle it's not guaranteed that the thread returns right away,
but it won't be longer out than two ticks, so no harm is done. If
that's an issue than it is way simpler just to wake the task from
idle as RCU has callbacks there anyway.

Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: Srivatsa S. Bhat <srivatsa.bhat@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Cc: Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp.com.au>
Cc: Namhyung Kim <namhyung@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20120716103948.131256723@linutronix.de
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>