From 01d3ad3834891f19a2620a105415feac93296eeb Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "Paul E. McKenney" Date: Wed, 7 Oct 2015 15:35:35 -0700 Subject: documentation: Cover requirements controlling stall warnings This commit adds verbiage on boot and sysfs parameters that can be used to control RCU CPU stall warnings, both to change the timeout and to suppress these warnings entirely. Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney --- .../RCU/Design/Requirements/Requirements.html | 25 +++++++++++++++++++++- .../RCU/Design/Requirements/Requirements.htmlx | 25 +++++++++++++++++++++- 2 files changed, 48 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/Documentation/RCU/Design/Requirements/Requirements.html b/Documentation/RCU/Design/Requirements/Requirements.html index 871f627b7713..cc5b587c0ec5 100644 --- a/Documentation/RCU/Design/Requirements/Requirements.html +++ b/Documentation/RCU/Design/Requirements/Requirements.html @@ -1618,12 +1618,35 @@ guard against mishaps and misuse: supplied the needed patch.
  • An infinite loop in an RCU read-side critical section will - eventually trigger an RCU CPU stall warning splat. + eventually trigger an RCU CPU stall warning splat, with + the duration of “eventually” being controlled by the + RCU_CPU_STALL_TIMEOUT Kconfig option, or, + alternatively, by the + rcupdate.rcu_cpu_stall_timeout boot/sysfs + parameter. However, RCU is not obligated to produce this splat unless there is a grace period waiting on that particular RCU read-side critical section. +

    + Some extreme workloads might intentionally delay + RCU grace periods, and systems running those workloads can + be booted with rcupdate.rcu_cpu_stall_suppress + to suppress the splats. + This kernel parameter may also be set via sysfs. + Furthermore, RCU CPU stall warnings are counter-productive + during sysrq dumps and during panics. + RCU therefore supplies the rcu_sysrq_start() and + rcu_sysrq_end() API members to be called before + and after long sysrq dumps. + RCU also supplies the rcu_panic() notifier that is + automatically invoked at the beginning of a panic to suppress + further RCU CPU stall warnings. + +

    This requirement made itself known in the early 1990s, pretty much the first time that it was necessary to debug a CPU stall. + That said, the initial implementation in DYNIX/ptx was quite + generic in comparison with that of Linux.

  • Although it would be very good to detect pointers leaking out of RCU read-side critical sections, there is currently no good way of doing this. diff --git a/Documentation/RCU/Design/Requirements/Requirements.htmlx b/Documentation/RCU/Design/Requirements/Requirements.htmlx index a544db4646c6..23524d75a3c3 100644 --- a/Documentation/RCU/Design/Requirements/Requirements.htmlx +++ b/Documentation/RCU/Design/Requirements/Requirements.htmlx @@ -1777,12 +1777,35 @@ guard against mishaps and misuse: supplied the needed patch.
  • An infinite loop in an RCU read-side critical section will - eventually trigger an RCU CPU stall warning splat. + eventually trigger an RCU CPU stall warning splat, with + the duration of “eventually” being controlled by the + RCU_CPU_STALL_TIMEOUT Kconfig option, or, + alternatively, by the + rcupdate.rcu_cpu_stall_timeout boot/sysfs + parameter. However, RCU is not obligated to produce this splat unless there is a grace period waiting on that particular RCU read-side critical section. +

    + Some extreme workloads might intentionally delay + RCU grace periods, and systems running those workloads can + be booted with rcupdate.rcu_cpu_stall_suppress + to suppress the splats. + This kernel parameter may also be set via sysfs. + Furthermore, RCU CPU stall warnings are counter-productive + during sysrq dumps and during panics. + RCU therefore supplies the rcu_sysrq_start() and + rcu_sysrq_end() API members to be called before + and after long sysrq dumps. + RCU also supplies the rcu_panic() notifier that is + automatically invoked at the beginning of a panic to suppress + further RCU CPU stall warnings. + +

    This requirement made itself known in the early 1990s, pretty much the first time that it was necessary to debug a CPU stall. + That said, the initial implementation in DYNIX/ptx was quite + generic in comparison with that of Linux.

  • Although it would be very good to detect pointers leaking out of RCU read-side critical sections, there is currently no good way of doing this. -- cgit v1.2.3-59-g8ed1b