On 01/29, Christoph Lameter wrote: > > On Mon, 29 Jan 2007, Oleg Nesterov wrote: > > > Now, > > static void __devinit start_cpu_timer(int cpu) > > { > > struct delayed_work *reap_work = &per_cpu(reap_work, cpu); > > > > if (keventd_up() && reap_work->work.func == NULL) { > > init_reap_node(cpu); > > INIT_DELAYED_WORK(reap_work, cache_reap); > > schedule_delayed_work_on(cpu, reap_work, > > __round_jiffies_relative(HZ, > > cpu)); > > } > > } > > > > This is wrong. Suppose we have a CPU_UP,CPU_DOWN,CPU_UP sequence. The last > > CPU_UP will not restart a per-cpu "cache_reap timer". > > Why?
Because the last CPU_UP calls start_cpu_timer(), but since ->work.func != NULL we don't do schedule_delayed_work_on(). I think (if I am right) this is a slab's bug. > > With or without recent changes, it is possible that work->func() will run on > > another CPU (not that to which it was submitted) if CPU goes down. In fact, > > this can happen while work->func() is running, so even smp_processor_id() > > is not safe to use in work->func(). > > But the work func was scheduled by schedule_delayed_work_on(). Isnt that a > general problem with schedule_delayed_work_on() and keventd? I think this is yet another problem with workqueues/cpu-hotplug interaction. Probably, the problem is more general. With CONFIG_CPU_HOTPLUG, we can't garantee that smp_processor_id() is stable even if the thread is pinned to specific processor. > > However, cache_reap() seems to wrongly assume that smp_processor_id() is > > stable, > > this is the second problem. > > > > Is my understanding correct? > > cache_reap assumes that the processor id is stable based on the kevent > thread being pinned to a processor. I think cache_reap() is not alone, and this is not its fault. But please note another minor problem, void cache_reap(struct work_struct *unused) { ... schedule_delayed_work(&__get_cpu_var(reap_work), ...); } Even if smp_processor_id() was stable during the execution of cache_reap(), this work_struct can be moved to another CPU if CPU_DEAD happens. We can't avoid this, and this is correct. This means that __get_cpu_var(reap_work) returns a "wrong" struct delayed_work. This is absolutely harmless right now, but may be it's better to use container_of(unused, struct delayed_work, work). Oleg. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/