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authorLinus Torvalds2024-03-11 12:50:42 -0700
committerLinus Torvalds2024-03-11 12:50:42 -0700
commitff887eb07cf69a5c0a507a1311fb34bcd38450aa (patch)
tree3a53f6ae79870a8a3d6213db17367b0768aefe8f /Documentation
parent8ede842f669b6f78812349bbef4d1efd0fbdafce (diff)
parent1acd92d95fa24edca8f0292b21870025da93e24f (diff)
Merge tag 'wq-for-6.9' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tj/wq
Pull workqueue updates from Tejun Heo: "This cycle, a lot of workqueue changes including some that are significant and invasive. - During v6.6 cycle, unbound workqueues were updated so that they are more topology aware and flexible, which among other things improved workqueue behavior on modern multi-L3 CPUs. In the process, commit 636b927eba5b ("workqueue: Make unbound workqueues to use per-cpu pool_workqueues") switched unbound workqueues to use per-CPU frontend pool_workqueues as a part of increasing front-back mapping flexibility. An unwelcome side effect of this change was that this made max concurrency enforcement per-CPU blowing up the maximum number of allowed concurrent executions. I incorrectly assumed that this wouldn't cause practical problems as most unbound workqueue users are self-regulate max concurrency; however, there definitely are which don't (e.g. on IO paths) and the drastic increase in the allowed max concurrency led to noticeable perf regressions in some use cases. This is now addressed by separating out max concurrency enforcement to a separate struct - wq_node_nr_active - which makes @max_active consistently mean system-wide max concurrency regardless of the number of CPUs or (finally) NUMA nodes. This is a rather invasive and, in places, a bit clunky; however, the clunkiness rises from the the inherent requirement to handle the disagreement between the execution locality domain and max concurrency enforcement domain on some modern machines. See commit 5797b1c18919 ("workqueue: Implement system-wide nr_active enforcement for unbound workqueues") for more details. - BH workqueue support is added. They are similar to per-CPU workqueues but execute work items in the softirq context. This is expected to replace tasklet. However, currently, it's missing the ability to disable and enable work items which is needed to convert many tasklet users. To avoid crowding this merge window too much, this will be included in the next merge window. A separate pull request will be sent for the couple conversion patches that are currently pending. - Waiman plugged a long-standing hole in workqueue CPU isolation where ordered workqueues didn't follow wq_unbound_cpumask updates. Ordered workqueues now follow the same rules as other unbound workqueues. - More CPU isolation improvements: Juri fixed another deficit in workqueue isolation where unbound rescuers don't respect wq_unbound_cpumask. Leonardo fixed delayed_work timers firing on isolated CPUs. - Other misc changes" * tag 'wq-for-6.9' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tj/wq: (54 commits) workqueue: Drain BH work items on hot-unplugged CPUs workqueue: Introduce from_work() helper for cleaner callback declarations workqueue: Control intensive warning threshold through cmdline workqueue: Make @flags handling consistent across set_work_data() and friends workqueue: Remove clear_work_data() workqueue: Factor out work_grab_pending() from __cancel_work_sync() workqueue: Clean up enum work_bits and related constants workqueue: Introduce work_cancel_flags workqueue: Use variable name irq_flags for saving local irq flags workqueue: Reorganize flush and cancel[_sync] functions workqueue: Rename __cancel_work_timer() to __cancel_timer_sync() workqueue: Use rcu_read_lock_any_held() instead of rcu_read_lock_held() workqueue: Cosmetic changes workqueue, irq_work: Build fix for !CONFIG_IRQ_WORK workqueue: Fix queue_work_on() with BH workqueues async: Use a dedicated unbound workqueue with raised min_active workqueue: Implement workqueue_set_min_active() workqueue: Fix kernel-doc comment of unplug_oldest_pwq() workqueue: Bind unbound workqueue rescuer to wq_unbound_cpumask kernel/workqueue: Let rescuers follow unbound wq cpumask changes ...
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt9
-rw-r--r--Documentation/core-api/workqueue.rst43
2 files changed, 38 insertions, 14 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt b/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt
index 94314d0eb301..e8f675cc22fd 100644
--- a/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt
+++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt
@@ -7244,6 +7244,15 @@
threshold repeatedly. They are likely good
candidates for using WQ_UNBOUND workqueues instead.
+ workqueue.cpu_intensive_warning_thresh=<uint>
+ If CONFIG_WQ_CPU_INTENSIVE_REPORT is set, the kernel
+ will report the work functions which violate the
+ intensive_threshold_us repeatedly. In order to prevent
+ spurious warnings, start printing only after a work
+ function has violated this threshold number of times.
+
+ The default is 4 times. 0 disables the warning.
+
workqueue.power_efficient
Per-cpu workqueues are generally preferred because
they show better performance thanks to cache
diff --git a/Documentation/core-api/workqueue.rst b/Documentation/core-api/workqueue.rst
index 3599cf9267b4..ed73c612174d 100644
--- a/Documentation/core-api/workqueue.rst
+++ b/Documentation/core-api/workqueue.rst
@@ -77,10 +77,12 @@ wants a function to be executed asynchronously it has to set up a work
item pointing to that function and queue that work item on a
workqueue.
-Special purpose threads, called worker threads, execute the functions
-off of the queue, one after the other. If no work is queued, the
-worker threads become idle. These worker threads are managed in so
-called worker-pools.
+A work item can be executed in either a thread or the BH (softirq) context.
+
+For threaded workqueues, special purpose threads, called [k]workers, execute
+the functions off of the queue, one after the other. If no work is queued,
+the worker threads become idle. These worker threads are managed in
+worker-pools.
The cmwq design differentiates between the user-facing workqueues that
subsystems and drivers queue work items on and the backend mechanism
@@ -91,6 +93,12 @@ for high priority ones, for each possible CPU and some extra
worker-pools to serve work items queued on unbound workqueues - the
number of these backing pools is dynamic.
+BH workqueues use the same framework. However, as there can only be one
+concurrent execution context, there's no need to worry about concurrency.
+Each per-CPU BH worker pool contains only one pseudo worker which represents
+the BH execution context. A BH workqueue can be considered a convenience
+interface to softirq.
+
Subsystems and drivers can create and queue work items through special
workqueue API functions as they see fit. They can influence some
aspects of the way the work items are executed by setting flags on the
@@ -106,7 +114,7 @@ unless specifically overridden, a work item of a bound workqueue will
be queued on the worklist of either normal or highpri worker-pool that
is associated to the CPU the issuer is running on.
-For any worker pool implementation, managing the concurrency level
+For any thread pool implementation, managing the concurrency level
(how many execution contexts are active) is an important issue. cmwq
tries to keep the concurrency at a minimal but sufficient level.
Minimal to save resources and sufficient in that the system is used at
@@ -164,6 +172,17 @@ resources, scheduled and executed.
``flags``
---------
+``WQ_BH``
+ BH workqueues can be considered a convenience interface to softirq. BH
+ workqueues are always per-CPU and all BH work items are executed in the
+ queueing CPU's softirq context in the queueing order.
+
+ All BH workqueues must have 0 ``max_active`` and ``WQ_HIGHPRI`` is the
+ only allowed additional flag.
+
+ BH work items cannot sleep. All other features such as delayed queueing,
+ flushing and canceling are supported.
+
``WQ_UNBOUND``
Work items queued to an unbound wq are served by the special
worker-pools which host workers which are not bound to any
@@ -237,15 +256,11 @@ may queue at the same time. Unless there is a specific need for
throttling the number of active work items, specifying '0' is
recommended.
-Some users depend on the strict execution ordering of ST wq. The
-combination of ``@max_active`` of 1 and ``WQ_UNBOUND`` used to
-achieve this behavior. Work items on such wq were always queued to the
-unbound worker-pools and only one work item could be active at any given
-time thus achieving the same ordering property as ST wq.
-
-In the current implementation the above configuration only guarantees
-ST behavior within a given NUMA node. Instead ``alloc_ordered_workqueue()`` should
-be used to achieve system-wide ST behavior.
+Some users depend on strict execution ordering where only one work item
+is in flight at any given time and the work items are processed in
+queueing order. While the combination of ``@max_active`` of 1 and
+``WQ_UNBOUND`` used to achieve this behavior, this is no longer the
+case. Use ``alloc_ordered_queue()`` instead.
Example Execution Scenarios