This patch splits del_timer_sync() into 2 functions. The new one,
try_to_del_timer_sync(), returns -1 when it hits executing timer.
It can be used in interrupt context, or when the caller hold locks which
can prevent completion of the timer's handler.
NOTE. Currently it can't be used in interrupt context in UP case, because
->running_timer is used only with CONFIG_SMP.
Should the need arise, it is possible to kill #ifdef CONFIG_SMP in
set_running_timer(), it is cheap.
Signed-off-by: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@tv-sign.ru>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
This patch tries to solve following problems:
1. del_timer_sync() is racy. The timer can be fired again after
del_timer_sync have checked all cpus and before it will recheck
timer_pending().
2. It has scalability problems. All cpus are scanned to determine
if the timer is running on that cpu.
With this patch del_timer_sync is O(1) and no slower than plain
del_timer(pending_timer), unless it has to actually wait for
completion of the currently running timer.
The only restriction is that the recurring timer should not use
add_timer_on().
3. The timers are not serialized wrt to itself.
If CPU_0 does mod_timer(jiffies+1) while the timer is currently
running on CPU 1, it is quite possible that local interrupt on
CPU_0 will start that timer before it finished on CPU_1.
4. The timers locking is suboptimal. __mod_timer() takes 3 locks
at once and still requires wmb() in del_timer/run_timers.
The new implementation takes 2 locks sequentially and does not
need memory barriers.
Currently ->base != NULL means that the timer is pending. In that case
->base.lock is used to lock the timer. __mod_timer also takes timer->lock
because ->base can be == NULL.
This patch uses timer->entry.next != NULL as indication that the timer is
pending. So it does __list_del(), entry->next = NULL instead of list_del()
when the timer is deleted.
The ->base field is used for hashed locking only, it is initialized
in init_timer() which sets ->base = per_cpu(tvec_bases). When the
tvec_bases.lock is locked, it means that all timers which are tied
to this base via timer->base are locked, and the base itself is locked
too.
So __run_timers/migrate_timers can safely modify all timers which could
be found on ->tvX lists (pending timers).
When the timer's base is locked, and the timer removed from ->entry list
(which means that _run_timers/migrate_timers can't see this timer), it is
possible to set timer->base = NULL and drop the lock: the timer remains
locked.
This patch adds lock_timer_base() helper, which waits for ->base != NULL,
locks the ->base, and checks it is still the same.
__mod_timer() schedules the timer on the local CPU and changes it's base.
However, it does not lock both old and new bases at once. It locks the
timer via lock_timer_base(), deletes the timer, sets ->base = NULL, and
unlocks old base. Then __mod_timer() locks new_base, sets ->base = new_base,
and adds this timer. This simplifies the code, because AB-BA deadlock is not
possible. __mod_timer() also ensures that the timer's base is not changed
while the timer's handler is running on the old base.
__run_timers(), del_timer() do not change ->base anymore, they only clear
pending flag.
So del_timer_sync() can test timer->base->running_timer == timer to detect
whether it is running or not.
We don't need timer_list->lock anymore, this patch kills it.
We also don't need barriers. del_timer() and __run_timers() used smp_wmb()
before clearing timer's pending flag. It was needed because __mod_timer()
did not lock old_base if the timer is not pending, so __mod_timer()->list_add()
could race with del_timer()->list_del(). With this patch these functions are
serialized through base->lock.
One problem. TIMER_INITIALIZER can't use per_cpu(tvec_bases). So this patch
adds global
struct timer_base_s {
spinlock_t lock;
struct timer_list *running_timer;
} __init_timer_base;
which is used by TIMER_INITIALIZER. The corresponding fields in tvec_t_base_s
struct are replaced by struct timer_base_s t_base.
It is indeed ugly. But this can't have scalability problems. The global
__init_timer_base.lock is used only when __mod_timer() is called for the first
time AND the timer was compile time initialized. After that the timer migrates
to the local CPU.
Signed-off-by: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@tv-sign.ru>
Acked-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Signed-off-by: Renaud Lienhart <renaud.lienhart@free.fr>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
Initial git repository build. I'm not bothering with the full history,
even though we have it. We can create a separate "historical" git
archive of that later if we want to, and in the meantime it's about
3.2GB when imported into git - space that would just make the early
git days unnecessarily complicated, when we don't have a lot of good
infrastructure for it.
Let it rip!
Oleg Nesterov
Linus Torvalds