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Date:   Fri, 3 Feb 2023 10:34:22 +0100 (CET)
From:   Christoph Lameter <cl@gentwo.de>
To:     Marcelo Tosatti <mtosatti@redhat.com>
cc:     Aaron Tomlin <atomlin@atomlin.com>,
        Frederic Weisbecker <frederic@kernel.org>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-mm@kvack.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 3/5] mm/vmstat: use cmpxchg loop in cpu_vm_stats_fold
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References: <20230201195013.881721887@redhat.com> <20230201195104.460373427@redhat.com> <fb371ac-cf69-28a6-eca0-6caccda4e0b8@gentwo.de> <Y9vcpO5Dh2G3Y6ib@tpad>
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On Thu, 2 Feb 2023, Marcelo Tosatti wrote:

> > I thought you would only run this while the kernel is not active on the
> > remote cpu? Then you dont need any cmpxchg and you can leave the function
> > as is.
>
> The remote cpu can enter kernel mode while this function executes.

Isnt there some lock/serializtion to stall the kernel until you are done?

> There is no mode which indicates userspace cannot enter the kernel.

There are lot of thinngs that happen upon entry to the kernel. I would
hope that you can do something there. Scheduler?