From: Frederic Weisbecker Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2025 15:58:27 +0000 (+0200) Subject: doc: Add housekeeping documentation X-Git-Url: http://git.ipfire.org/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?a=commitdiff_plain;h=fa39ec4f89f2637ed1cdbcde3656825951787668;p=thirdparty%2Flinux.git doc: Add housekeeping documentation Signed-off-by: Frederic Weisbecker Acked-by: Waiman Long Cc: Marco Crivellari Cc: Michal Hocko Cc: Peter Zijlstra Cc: Tejun Heo Cc: Thomas Gleixner Cc: Waiman Long --- diff --git a/Documentation/core-api/housekeeping.rst b/Documentation/core-api/housekeeping.rst new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000..e5417302774c7 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/core-api/housekeeping.rst @@ -0,0 +1,111 @@ +====================================== +Housekeeping +====================================== + + +CPU Isolation moves away kernel work that may otherwise run on any CPU. +The purpose of its related features is to reduce the OS jitter that some +extreme workloads can't stand, such as in some DPDK usecases. + +The kernel work moved away by CPU isolation is commonly described as +"housekeeping" because it includes ground work that performs cleanups, +statistics maintainance and actions relying on them, memory release, +various deferrals etc... + +Sometimes housekeeping is just some unbound work (unbound workqueues, +unbound timers, ...) that gets easily assigned to non-isolated CPUs. +But sometimes housekeeping is tied to a specific CPU and requires +elaborated tricks to be offloaded to non-isolated CPUs (RCU_NOCB, remote +scheduler tick, etc...). + +Thus, a housekeeping CPU can be considered as the reverse of an isolated +CPU. It is simply a CPU that can execute housekeeping work. There must +always be at least one online housekeeping CPU at any time. The CPUs that +are not isolated are automatically assigned as housekeeping. + +Housekeeping is currently divided in four features described +by the ``enum hk_type type``: + +1. HK_TYPE_DOMAIN matches the work moved away by scheduler domain + isolation performed through ``isolcpus=domain`` boot parameter or + isolated cpuset partitions in cgroup v2. This includes scheduler + load balancing, unbound workqueues and timers. + +2. HK_TYPE_KERNEL_NOISE matches the work moved away by tick isolation + performed through ``nohz_full=`` or ``isolcpus=nohz`` boot + parameters. This includes remote scheduler tick, vmstat and lockup + watchdog. + +3. HK_TYPE_MANAGED_IRQ matches the IRQ handlers moved away by managed + IRQ isolation performed through ``isolcpus=managed_irq``. + +4. HK_TYPE_DOMAIN_BOOT matches the work moved away by scheduler domain + isolation performed through ``isolcpus=domain`` only. It is similar + to HK_TYPE_DOMAIN except it ignores the isolation performed by + cpusets. + + +Housekeeping cpumasks +================================= + +Housekeeping cpumasks include the CPUs that can execute the work moved +away by the matching isolation feature. These cpumasks are returned by +the following function:: + + const struct cpumask *housekeeping_cpumask(enum hk_type type) + +By default, if neither ``nohz_full=``, nor ``isolcpus``, nor cpuset's +isolated partitions are used, which covers most usecases, this function +returns the cpu_possible_mask. + +Otherwise the function returns the cpumask complement of the isolation +feature. For example: + +With isolcpus=domain,7 the following will return a mask with all possible +CPUs except 7:: + + housekeeping_cpumask(HK_TYPE_DOMAIN) + +Similarly with nohz_full=5,6 the following will return a mask with all +possible CPUs except 5,6:: + + housekeeping_cpumask(HK_TYPE_KERNEL_NOISE) + + +Synchronization against cpusets +================================= + +Cpuset can modify the HK_TYPE_DOMAIN housekeeping cpumask while creating, +modifying or deleting an isolated partition. + +The users of HK_TYPE_DOMAIN cpumask must then make sure to synchronize +properly against cpuset in order to make sure that: + +1. The cpumask snapshot stays coherent. + +2. No housekeeping work is queued on a newly made isolated CPU. + +3. Pending housekeeping work that was queued to a non isolated + CPU which just turned isolated through cpuset must be flushed + before the related created/modified isolated partition is made + available to userspace. + +This synchronization is maintained by an RCU based scheme. The cpuset update +side waits for an RCU grace period after updating the HK_TYPE_DOMAIN +cpumask and before flushing pending works. On the read side, care must be +taken to gather the housekeeping target election and the work enqueue within +the same RCU read side critical section. + +A typical layout example would look like this on the update side +(``housekeeping_update()``):: + + rcu_assign_pointer(housekeeping_cpumasks[type], trial); + synchronize_rcu(); + flush_workqueue(example_workqueue); + +And then on the read side:: + + rcu_read_lock(); + cpu = housekeeping_any_cpu(HK_TYPE_DOMAIN); + queue_work_on(cpu, example_workqueue, work); + rcu_read_unlock(); diff --git a/Documentation/core-api/index.rst b/Documentation/core-api/index.rst index 5eb0fbbbc323c..79fe7735692ea 100644 --- a/Documentation/core-api/index.rst +++ b/Documentation/core-api/index.rst @@ -25,6 +25,7 @@ it. symbol-namespaces asm-annotations real-time/index + housekeeping.rst Data structures and low-level utilities =======================================