Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH v2 3/4] xen: add process_pending_softirqs_norcu() for keyhandlers

[Roger Pau Monné <roger.pau@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 12:44:48PM +0100, Jürgen Groß wrote:
> On 24.02.20 12:25, Roger Pau Monné wrote:
> > On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 01:21:13PM +0100, Juergen Gross wrote:
> > > Some keyhandlers are calling process_pending_softirqs() while holding
> > > a rcu_read_lock(). This is wrong, as process_pending_softirqs() might
> > > activate rcu calls which should not happen inside a rcu_read_lock().
> > 
> > It might be helpful to turn the ASSERT in process_pending_softirqs
> > into ASSERT_NOT_IN_ATOMIC also, as it would catch such missuses
> > AFAICT.
> 
> No, this would be triggering in __cpu_up() at system boot.

Yes, saw that in the next patch.

> > 
> > > 
> > > For that purpose add process_pending_softirqs_norcu() which will not
> > > do any rcu activity and use this for keyhandlers.
> > 
> > I wonder if for keyhandlers it might be easier to just disable the
> > watchdog in handle_keypress and remove the softirq processing from the
> > handlers.
> > 
> > At the end of day we want the keyhanders to run as fast as possible in
> > order to get the data out, and we only care about the watchdog not
> > triggering? (maybe I'm missing something here)
> 
> It is not that simple, I believe.
> 
> You'd need to be very careful that other functionality wouldn't suffer.
> I'm e.g. not sure time_calibration won't lead to a hanging system then.

AFAICT time_calibration is used to sync the timestamps of the various
CPUs so that they don't drift too much, but I don't think not
executing it could lead to a hang, it would lead to (bigger) skews
between CPUs, but such skews happen anyway.

Thanks, Roger.

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