Re: [PATCH v5 0/2] printk: Console owner and waiter logic cleanup

[Sergey Senozhatsky <sergey.senozhatsky.work@gmail.com>]

On (01/15/18 07:06), Steven Rostedt wrote:
> > > Yep, but I'm still not convinced you are seeing an issue with a single
> > > printk.  
> > 
> > what do you mean by this?
> 
> I'm not sure your issues happen because a single printk is locked up,
> but you have many printks in one area.

hm, need to think about it.

> > > An OOM does not do everything in one printk, it calls hundreds.
> > > Having hundreds of printks is an issue, especially in critical sections.  
> > 
> > unless your console_sem owner is preempted. as long as it is preempted
> > it doesn't really matter how many times we call printk from which CPUs
> > and from which sections, but what matters - who is going to print that all
> > out when console_sem is running again and how much time will it take.
> > that's what I'm saying.
> 
> OK, if this is an issue, then we could do:
> 
> 	preempt_disable();
> 	if (console_trylock_spinning())
> 		console_unlock();
> 	preempt_enable();
> 
> Which would prevent any printks from being preempted, but allow for
> other console_lock owners to be so.

yes, non-preemptible printk->console_unlock() is good for a number of
reasons.

[..]
> > > > vprintk_emit()
> > > > {
> > > > 
> > > > 	console_trylock_spinning(void)
> > > > 	{
> > > > 	   printk_safe_enter_irqsave(flags);
> > > > 	   while (READ_ONCE(console_waiter))       // spins as long as call_console_drivers() on other CPU
> > > > 	        cpu_relax();
> > > > 	   printk_safe_exit_irqrestore(flags);  
> > > > --->	}    
> > > > |						   // preemptible up until printk_safe_enter_irqsave() in console_unlock()  
> > > 
> > > Again, this means the waiter is not in a critical section. Why do we
> > > care?  
> > 
> > which is not what I was talking about. the point was that you said
> 
> And would be fixed with the preempt_disable() I added above.

yes. and it's, basically, very close to a revert of the commit
I mentioned.

[..]
> > that is not true. we can have preemption "during" hand off. hand off,
> > thus, is a "delayed approach", by definition. so if you consider the
> > possibility of "if the machine were to crash in the transfer, we lost
> > all that data" and if you consider this to be important [otherwise you
> > wouldn't bring that up, would you] then the reality is that your patch
> > has the same problem as printk_kthread.
> 
> With the preempt_disable() there really isn't a delay. I agree, we
> shouldn't let printk preempt (unless we have CONFIG_PREEMPT_RT enabled,
> but that's another story).

yes.

> > so very schematically, for hand-off it's something like
> > 
> > 	if (... console_trylock_spinning()) // grabbed the ownership
> > 
> > 		<< ... preempted ... >>
> > 
> > 		console_unlock();
> 
> Which I think we should stop, with the preempt_disable().

yes.

> > for printk_kthread it's something like
> > 
> > 		wake_up_process(printk_kthread);
> > 		up(console_sem);
> > 
> > 
> > in the later case we at least have console_sem unlocked. so any other CPU
> > that might do printk() can grab the lock and emit the logbuf messages. but
> > in case on hand-off, we have console_sem locked, so no printk() will be
> > able to emit the messages, we need that specific task to become running.
> > 
> > 
> > hence the following:
> > 
> > [..]
> > > > reverting 6b97a20d3a7909daa06625d4440c2c52d7bf08d7 may be the right
> > > > thing after all.  
> > 
> > this was cryptic and misleading. sorry.
> > some clarifications.
> > 
> > what I meant was that with 6b97a20d3a7909daa06625d4440c2c52d7bf08d7
> > I think I badly broke printk() [some of paths]. I know what I tried
> 
> I think adding the preempt_disable() would fix printk() but let non
> printk console_unlock() still preempt.

yes. might be a bit risky, but can try.

and yes, we still have console_lock() call sites, which can sleep
under console_sem, so scheduler still can mess up with us, but
that's a different story. agreed.

> > to fix (and you don't have to explain to me what a lock up is) with
> > that patch, but I don't think the patch ended up to be a clear win.
> > a very simple explanation would be:
> > 
> > instead of having a direct nonpreemptible path
> > 
> > 	logbuf -> for(;;) call_console_drivers -> happy user
> > 
> > we now have
> > 
> > 	logbuf -> for(;;) { call_console_drivers, scheduler ... ???} -> happy user
> > 
> > which is a big change. with a non-zero potential for regressions.
> > and it didn't take long to find out that not all "happy users" were
> > exactly happy with the new scheme of things. glance through Tetsuo's
> > emails [see links in my another email], Tetsuo reported that printk can
> > stall for minutes now. basically, the worse the system state is the lower
> > printk throughput can be [down to zero chars in the worst case]. that's
> > why I think that my patch was a mistake. and that's why in my out-of-tree
> > patches I'm moving towards the non-preemptible path from logbuf through
> > console to a happy user [just like it used to be]. but, obviously, I can't
> > just restore preempt_disable()/preempt_enable() in vprintk_emit(). that's
> > why I bound console_unlock() to watchdog threshold and move towards the
> > batched non-preemptible print outs (enabling preemption and up()-ing the
> > console_sem at the end of each print out batch). this is not super good,
> > preemption is still here, but at least not after every line console_unlock()
> > prints. up() console_sem also increases chances that, for instance, systemd
> > or any other task that is sleeping in TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE on console_sem
> > now has a chance to be woken up sooner (not only after we flush all pending
> > logbuf messages and finally up() the console_sem).
> 
> I rather try simpler approaches first (like adding the preempt_disable()
> on top of my patch) than an elaborate scheme of printk_kthreads.

ok, agreed.

	-ss

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