Hi Soren,

On 09/13/2013 03:50 PM, Preeti Murthy wrote:

Hi,

So the patch that Daniel points out http://lwn.net/Articles/566270/ ,
enables broadcast functionality
without using an external global clock device. It uses one of the per cpu
clock devices to enable the broadcast functionality.

The way it achieves this is by creating a pseudo clock device and
associating it with one of the cpus clock device and
by having a hrtimer queued on the same cpu. This pseudo clock device acts
as the broadcast device, and the
 per cpu clock device that it is associated with acts as the broadcast
source.

The disadvantages that Soren mentions in having a per cpu clock device as
the broadcast source can be overcome
by following the approach proposed in this patch n the way described below:

1. What if the cpu, whose clock device is the broadcast source goes offline?

The solution that the above patch proposes is associate the pseudo clock
device with another cpu and move the hrtimer
whose function is explained in the next point to another cpu. The broadcast
functionality continues to remain active transparently.

2. The cpu that requires broadcast functionality is different from the cpu
whose clock device is the broadcast source.
So how will the former cpu program/control the clock device of the latter
cpu?

The above patch queues a hrtimer on the cpu whose clock device is the
broadcast source, which expires at
max(tick_broadcast_period,  dev->next_event), where tick_broadcast_period
is what we define and dev is the
pseudo device whose next event is set by the broadcast framework.

On expiry of this hrtimer, do broadcast handling and reprogram the hrtimer
with same as above,
max(tick_broadcast_period,  dev->next_event).

This ensures that a cpu that requires broadcast function to be activated
need not program the broadcast source,
which also happens to be a per cpu clock device. The hrtimer queued on the
cpu whose clock device is the
broadcast source takes care of when to do broadcast handling.
tick_broadcast_period ensures that we do
not miss wakeups. This is introduced to overcome the constraint of a cpu
not being able to program the clock
device of another cpu.

Soren, do let me know if the above approach described in the patch has not
addressed any of the challenges
that you see with having a  per cpu clock device as the broadcast source.

Regards
Preeti U Murthy


On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 1:55 PM, Daniel Lezcano
[off-list ref]wrote:

quoted

On 09/12/2013 10:30 PM, Thomas Gleixner wrote:

quoted

On Thu, 12 Sep 2013, Soren Brinkmann wrote:

quoted

From: Stephen Boyd <redacted>

On most ARM systems the per-cpu clockevents are truly per-cpu in
the sense that they can't be controlled on any other CPU besides
the CPU that they interrupt. If one of these clockevents were to
become a broadcast source we will run into a lot of trouble
because the broadcast source is enabled on the first CPU to go
into deep idle (if that CPU suffers from FEAT_C3_STOP) and that
could be a different CPU than what the clockevent is interrupting
(or even worse the CPU that the clockevent interrupts could be
offline).

Theoretically it's possible to support per-cpu clockevents as the
broadcast source but so far we haven't needed this and supporting
it is rather complicated. Let's just deny the possibility for now
until this becomes a reality (let's hope it never does!).

Well, we can't do it this way. There are globally accessible clock
event devices which deliver only to cpu0. So the mask check might be
causing failure here.

Just add a feature flag CLOCK_EVT_FEAT_PERCPU to the clock event
device and check for it.

It sounds probably more understandable than dealing with the cpumasks.

I am wondering if this is semantically opposed to
http://lwn.net/Articles/566270/ ?

[PATCH V3 0/6] cpuidle/ppc: Enable broadcast support for deep idle states

  -- Daniel

So the point I am trying to make is that the fix that you have proposed
on this thread is valid. It is difficult to ensure that a per cpu clock
device doubles up as the broadcast source without significant code
changes to the current broadcast code and the timer code.

But the patch [PATCH V3 0/6] cpuidle/ppc: Enable broadcast support for
deep idle states, attempts to overcome the disadvantage on certain
architectures of not having an external clock device to perform
broadcast *without* significant code changes in broadcast or timer.

This patch does not conflict with what you are proposing in this thread
of having a feature flag CLOCK_EVT_FEAT_PERCPU, since the pseudo clock
device that the patch introduces will not have this flag set anyway.

So ideally architectures, without having a planned infrastructure in
them cannot nominate their per cpu clock device as the broadcast source.
And if they do have some infrastructure to support a per cpu clock
device as broadcast source, they should ensure that the device passes
your test as is proposed in this patch. So your fix is valid IMHO. That
said it is still possible to manage without an external clock device for
performing broadcast.

Regards
Preeti U Murthy