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timers/nohz: Last resort update jiffies on nohz_full IRQ entry

When at least one CPU runs in nohz_full mode, a dedicated timekeeper CPU
is guaranteed to stay online and to never stop its tick.

Meanwhile on some rare case, the dedicated timekeeper may be running
with interrupts disabled for a while, such as in stop_machine.

If jiffies stop being updated, a nohz_full CPU may end up endlessly
programming the next tick in the past, taking the last jiffies update
monotonic timestamp as a stale base, resulting in an tick storm.

Here is a scenario where it matters:

0) CPU 0 is the timekeeper and CPU 1 a nohz_full CPU.

1) A stop machine callback is queued to execute somewhere.

2) CPU 0 reaches MULTI_STOP_DISABLE_IRQ while CPU 1 is still in
MULTI_STOP_PREPARE. Hence CPU 0 can't do its timekeeping duty. CPU 1
can still take IRQs.

3) CPU 1 receives an IRQ which queues a timer callback one jiffy forward.

4) On IRQ exit, CPU 1 schedules the tick one jiffy forward, taking
last_jiffies_update as a base. But last_jiffies_update hasn't been
updated for 2 jiffies since the timekeeper has interrupts disabled.

5) clockevents_program_event(), which relies on ktime_get(), observes
that the expiration is in the past and therefore programs the min
delta event on the clock.

6) The tick fires immediately, goto 3)

7) Tick storm, the nohz_full CPU is drown and takes ages to reach
MULTI_STOP_DISABLE_IRQ, which is the only way out of this situation.

Solve this with unconditionally updating jiffies if the value is stale
on nohz_full IRQ entry. IRQs and other disturbances are expected to be
rare enough on nohz_full for the unconditional call to ktime_get() to
actually matter.

Reported-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Frederic Weisbecker <frederic@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Tested-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@kernel.org>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20211026141055.57358-2-frederic@kernel.org

authored by

Frederic Weisbecker and committed by
Thomas Gleixner
53e87e3c d58071a8

+9 -1
+2 -1
kernel/softirq.c
··· 595 595 { 596 596 __irq_enter_raw(); 597 597 598 - if (is_idle_task(current) && (irq_count() == HARDIRQ_OFFSET)) 598 + if (tick_nohz_full_cpu(smp_processor_id()) || 599 + (is_idle_task(current) && (irq_count() == HARDIRQ_OFFSET))) 599 600 tick_irq_enter(); 600 601 601 602 account_hardirq_enter(current);
+7
kernel/time/tick-sched.c
··· 1375 1375 now = ktime_get(); 1376 1376 if (ts->idle_active) 1377 1377 tick_nohz_stop_idle(ts, now); 1378 + /* 1379 + * If all CPUs are idle. We may need to update a stale jiffies value. 1380 + * Note nohz_full is a special case: a timekeeper is guaranteed to stay 1381 + * alive but it might be busy looping with interrupts disabled in some 1382 + * rare case (typically stop machine). So we must make sure we have a 1383 + * last resort. 1384 + */ 1378 1385 if (ts->tick_stopped) 1379 1386 tick_nohz_update_jiffies(now); 1380 1387 }