[3.16.y-ckt stable] Patch "ksoftirqd: Enable IRQs and call cond_resched() before poking RCU" has been added to staging queue

[Luis Henriques]

This is a note to let you know that I have just added a patch titled

    ksoftirqd: Enable IRQs and call cond_resched() before poking RCU

to the linux-3.16.y-queue branch of the 3.16.y-ckt extended stable tree 
which can be found at:

 http://kernel.ubuntu.com/git?p=ubuntu/linux.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/linux-3.16.y-queue

This patch is scheduled to be released in version 3.16.7-ckt8.

If you, or anyone else, feels it should not be added to this tree, please 
reply to this email.

For more information about the 3.16.y-ckt tree, see
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/Dev/ExtendedStable

Thanks.
-Luis

------

>From 6fb2a4e73a618598f1cf09b5584b8f852686ace6 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Calvin Owens <calvinowens at fb.com>
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 13:16:18 -0800
Subject: ksoftirqd: Enable IRQs and call cond_resched() before poking RCU

commit 28423ad283d5348793b0c45cc9b1af058e776fd6 upstream.

While debugging an issue with excessive softirq usage, I encountered the
following note in commit 3e339b5dae24a706 ("softirq: Use hotplug thread
infrastructure"):

    [ paulmck: Call rcu_note_context_switch() with interrupts enabled. ]

...but despite this note, the patch still calls RCU with IRQs disabled.

This seemingly innocuous change caused a significant regression in softirq
CPU usage on the sending side of a large TCP transfer (~1 GB/s): when
introducing 0.01% packet loss, the softirq usage would jump to around 25%,
spiking as high as 50%. Before the change, the usage would never exceed 5%.

Moving the call to rcu_note_context_switch() after the cond_sched() call,
as it was originally before the hotplug patch, completely eliminated this
problem.

Signed-off-by: Calvin Owens <calvinowens at fb.com>
Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck at linux.vnet.ibm.com>
[ luis: backported to 3.16: adjusted context ]
Signed-off-by: Luis Henriques <luis.henriques at canonical.com>
---
 kernel/softirq.c | 6 +++++-
 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/kernel/softirq.c b/kernel/softirq.c
index 5918d227730f..f74268fa965e 100644
--- a/kernel/softirq.c
+++ b/kernel/softirq.c
@@ -656,9 +656,13 @@ static void run_ksoftirqd(unsigned int cpu)
 		 * in the task stack here.
 		 */
 		__do_softirq();
-		rcu_note_context_switch(cpu);
 		local_irq_enable();
 		cond_resched();
+
+		preempt_disable();
+		rcu_note_context_switch(cpu);
+		preempt_enable();
+
 		return;
 	}
 	local_irq_enable();