On Thu, Feb 13, 2020 at 09:27:16AM +0100, Peter Zijlstra wrote: > On Wed, Feb 12, 2020 at 06:20:05PM -0500, Joel Fernandes wrote: > > On Wed, Feb 12, 2020 at 10:01:42PM +0100, Peter Zijlstra wrote: > > > > +#define trace_rcu_enter() \ > > > +({ \ > > > + unsigned long state = 0; \ > > > + if (!rcu_is_watching()) { \ > > > + if (in_nmi()) { \ > > > + state = __TR_NMI; \ > > > + rcu_nmi_enter(); \ > > > + } else { \ > > > + state = __TR_IRQ; \ > > > + rcu_irq_enter_irqsave(); \ > > > > I think this can be simplified. You don't need to rely on in_nmi() here. I > > believe for NMI's, you can just call rcu_irq_enter_irqsave() and that should > > be sufficient to get RCU watching. Paul can correct me if I'm wrong, but I am > > pretty sure that would work. > > > > In fact, I think a better naming for rcu_irq_enter_irqsave() pair could be > > (in the first patch): > > > > rcu_ensure_watching_begin(); > > rcu_ensure_watching_end(); > > So I hadn't looked deeply into rcu_irq_enter(), it seems to call > rcu_nmi_enter_common(), but with @irq=true. > > What exactly is the purpose of that @irq argument, and how much will it > hurt to lie there? Will it come apart if we have @irq != !in_nmi() > for example? > > There is a comment in there that says ->dynticks_nmi_nesting ought to be > odd only if we're in NMI. The only place that seems to care is > rcu_nmi_exit_common(), and that does indeed do something different for > IRQs vs NMIs. > > So I don't think we can blindly unify this. But perhaps Paul sees a way? The reason for the irq argument is to avoid invoking rcu_prepare_for_idle() and rcu_dynticks_task_enter() from NMI context from rcu_nmi_exit_common(). Similarly, we need to avoid invoking rcu_dynticks_task_exit() and rcu_cleanup_after_idle() from NMI context from rcu_nmi_enter_common(). It might well be that I could make these functions be NMI-safe, but rcu_prepare_for_idle() in particular would be a bit ugly at best. So, before looking into that, I have a question. Given these proposed changes, will rcu_nmi_exit_common() and rcu_nmi_enter_common() be able to just use in_nmi()? Thanx, Paul