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From:   Valentin Schneider <valentin.schneider@arm.com>
To:     Vincent Guittot <vincent.guittot@linaro.org>
Cc:     Peng Liu <iwtbavbm@gmail.com>,
        linux-kernel <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>,
        Juri Lelli <juri.lelli@redhat.com>,
        Dietmar Eggemann <dietmar.eggemann@arm.com>,
        Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>,
        Ben Segall <bsegall@google.com>, Mel Gorman <mgorman@suse.de>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] sched/fair: Fix nohz.next_balance update
In-reply-to: <CAKfTPtCNG9Y4xNA-iLd+JRRsUCA1+SkkFFRbbzk5n7q6v401tw@mail.gmail.com>
Date:   Mon, 04 May 2020 16:48:06 +0100
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On 04/05/20 16:17, Vincent Guittot wrote:
> On Sun, 3 May 2020 at 10:34, Peng Liu <iwtbavbm@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> commit c5afb6a87f23 ("sched/fair: Fix nohz.next_balance update")
>> During idle load balance, this_cpu(ilb) do load balance for the other
>> idle CPUs, also gather the earliest (nohz.)next_balance.
>>
>> Since commit:
>>   'b7031a02ec75 ("sched/fair: Add NOHZ_STATS_KICK")'
>>
>> We update nohz.next_balance like this:
>>
>>   _nohz_idle_balance() {
>>       for_each_cpu(nohz.idle_cpus_mask) {
>>           rebalance_domains() {
>>               update nohz.next_balance <-- compare and update
>>           }
>>       }
>>       rebalance_domains(this_cpu) {
>>           update nohz.next_balance <-- compare and update
>>       }
>>       update nohz.next_balance <-- unconditionally update
>>   }
>>
>> For instance, nohz.idle_cpus_mask spans {cpu2,3,5,8}, and this_cpu is
>> cpu5. After the above loop we could gather the earliest *next_balance*
>> among {cpu2,3,8}, then rebalance_domains(this_cpu) update
>> nohz.next_balance with this_rq->next_balance, but finally overwrite
>> nohz.next_balance with the earliest *next_balance* among {cpu2,3,8},
>> we may end up with not getting the earliest next_balance.
>>
>> Since we can gather all the updated rq->next_balance, including this_cpu,
>> in _nohz_idle_balance(), it's safe to remove the extra lines in
>> rebalance_domains() which are originally intended for this_cpu. And
>> finally the updating only happen in _nohz_idle_balance().
>
> I'm not sure that's always true. Nothing prevents nohz_idle_balance()
> to return false . Then run_rebalance_domains() calls
> rebalance_domains(this_rq ,SCHED_IDLE) outside _nohz_idle_balance().
> In this case we must keep the code in rebalance_domains().
>
> For example when the tick is not stopped when entering idle. Or when
> need_resched() returns true.
>

I had missed that, good points.

> So instead of removing the code from rebalance_domains, you should
> move the one in _nohz_idle_balance() to make sure that the "if
> (likely(update_next_balance)) ..." is called before calling
> rebalance_domains for the local cpu
>

Why not just get rid of the update in _nohz_idle_balance() entirely then?
The nohz.next_balance update in rebalance_domains() will always happen if
it is required (and we have idle == CPU_IDLE), so the extra update in
_nohz_idle_balance() doesn't seem to be any useful.