Re: [Patch] restore the RCU callback to defer put_task_struct() Re: Problems with 2.6.17-rt8

[Esben Nielsen <nielsen.esben@gogglemail.com>]

On Mon, 7 Aug 2006, Bill Huey wrote:

> On Mon, Aug 07, 2006 at 07:56:15PM -0700, Bill Huey wrote:
> > On Thu, Aug 03, 2006 at 10:27:41AM -0400, Steven Rostedt wrote:
> >
> > ...(output and commentary a log deleted)...
> >
> > > This could also have a side effect that messes things up.
> > >
> > > Unfortunately, right now I'm assigned to other tasks and I cant spend
> > > much more time on this at the moment.  So hopefully, Ingo, Thomas or
> > > Bill, or someone else can help you find the reason for this problem.
> >
> > Steve and company,
> >
> > Speaking of which, after talking to Steve about this and confirming this
> > with a revert of changes. put_task_struct() can't deallocated memory from
> > either the zone or SLAB cache without taking a sleeping lock. It can't
> > be called directly from finish_task_switch to reap the thread because of
> > that (violation in atomic).
> >
> > It is for this reason the RCU call back to delay processing was put into
> > place to reap threads and was, seemingly by accident, missing from
> > patch-2.6.17-rt7 to -rt8. That is what broke it in the first place.
> >
> > I tested it with a "make -j4" which triggers the warning and it they all
> > go away now.
> >
> > Reverse patch attached:
>
> Resend with instrumentation code removed:
>
> bill

I had a long discussion with Paul McKenney about this. I opposed the patch 
from a latency point of view: Suddenly a high-priority RT task could be 
made into releasing a task_struct. It would be better for latencies to 
defer it to a low priority task.

The conclusion we ended up with was that it is not a job for the RCU 
system, but it ought to be deferred to some other low priority task to 
free the task_struct.

Esben

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