1 .. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
3 ==============================
4 Using RCU's CPU Stall Detector
5 ==============================
7 This document first discusses what sorts of issues RCU's CPU stall
8 detector can locate, and then discusses kernel parameters and Kconfig
9 options that can be used to fine-tune the detector's operation. Finally,
10 this document explains the stall detector's "splat" format.
13 What Causes RCU CPU Stall Warnings?
14 ===================================
16 So your kernel printed an RCU CPU stall warning. The next question is
17 "What caused it?" The following problems can result in RCU CPU stall
20 - A CPU looping in an RCU read-side critical section.
22 - A CPU looping with interrupts disabled.
24 - A CPU looping with preemption disabled.
26 - A CPU looping with bottom halves disabled.
28 - For !CONFIG_PREEMPTION kernels, a CPU looping anywhere in the kernel
29 without invoking schedule(). If the looping in the kernel is
30 really expected and desirable behavior, you might need to add
31 some calls to cond_resched().
33 - Booting Linux using a console connection that is too slow to
34 keep up with the boot-time console-message rate. For example,
35 a 115Kbaud serial console can be *way* too slow to keep up
36 with boot-time message rates, and will frequently result in
37 RCU CPU stall warning messages. Especially if you have added
40 - Anything that prevents RCU's grace-period kthreads from running.
41 This can result in the "All QSes seen" console-log message.
42 This message will include information on when the kthread last
43 ran and how often it should be expected to run. It can also
44 result in the ``rcu_.*kthread starved for`` console-log message,
45 which will include additional debugging information.
47 - A CPU-bound real-time task in a CONFIG_PREEMPTION kernel, which might
48 happen to preempt a low-priority task in the middle of an RCU
49 read-side critical section. This is especially damaging if
50 that low-priority task is not permitted to run on any other CPU,
51 in which case the next RCU grace period can never complete, which
52 will eventually cause the system to run out of memory and hang.
53 While the system is in the process of running itself out of
54 memory, you might see stall-warning messages.
56 - A CPU-bound real-time task in a CONFIG_PREEMPT_RT kernel that
57 is running at a higher priority than the RCU softirq threads.
58 This will prevent RCU callbacks from ever being invoked,
59 and in a CONFIG_PREEMPT_RCU kernel will further prevent
60 RCU grace periods from ever completing. Either way, the
61 system will eventually run out of memory and hang. In the
62 CONFIG_PREEMPT_RCU case, you might see stall-warning
65 You can use the rcutree.kthread_prio kernel boot parameter to
66 increase the scheduling priority of RCU's kthreads, which can
67 help avoid this problem. However, please note that doing this
68 can increase your system's context-switch rate and thus degrade
71 - A periodic interrupt whose handler takes longer than the time
72 interval between successive pairs of interrupts. This can
73 prevent RCU's kthreads and softirq handlers from running.
74 Note that certain high-overhead debugging options, for example
75 the function_graph tracer, can result in interrupt handler taking
76 considerably longer than normal, which can in turn result in
77 RCU CPU stall warnings.
79 - Testing a workload on a fast system, tuning the stall-warning
80 timeout down to just barely avoid RCU CPU stall warnings, and then
81 running the same workload with the same stall-warning timeout on a
82 slow system. Note that thermal throttling and on-demand governors
83 can cause a single system to be sometimes fast and sometimes slow!
85 - A hardware or software issue shuts off the scheduler-clock
86 interrupt on a CPU that is not in dyntick-idle mode. This
87 problem really has happened, and seems to be most likely to
88 result in RCU CPU stall warnings for CONFIG_NO_HZ_COMMON=n kernels.
90 - A hardware or software issue that prevents time-based wakeups
91 from occurring. These issues can range from misconfigured or
92 buggy timer hardware through bugs in the interrupt or exception
93 path (whether hardware, firmware, or software) through bugs
94 in Linux's timer subsystem through bugs in the scheduler, and,
95 yes, even including bugs in RCU itself. It can also result in
96 the ``rcu_.*timer wakeup didn't happen for`` console-log message,
97 which will include additional debugging information.
99 - A low-level kernel issue that either fails to invoke one of the
100 variants of rcu_eqs_enter(true), rcu_eqs_exit(true), ct_idle_enter(),
101 ct_idle_exit(), ct_irq_enter(), or ct_irq_exit() on the one
102 hand, or that invokes one of them too many times on the other.
103 Historically, the most frequent issue has been an omission
104 of either irq_enter() or irq_exit(), which in turn invoke
105 ct_irq_enter() or ct_irq_exit(), respectively. Building your
106 kernel with CONFIG_RCU_EQS_DEBUG=y can help track down these types
107 of issues, which sometimes arise in architecture-specific code.
109 - A bug in the RCU implementation.
111 - A hardware failure. This is quite unlikely, but has occurred
112 at least once in real life. A CPU failed in a running system,
113 becoming unresponsive, but not causing an immediate crash.
114 This resulted in a series of RCU CPU stall warnings, eventually
115 leading the realization that the CPU had failed.
117 The RCU, RCU-sched, and RCU-tasks implementations have CPU stall warning.
118 Note that SRCU does *not* have CPU stall warnings. Please note that
119 RCU only detects CPU stalls when there is a grace period in progress.
120 No grace period, no CPU stall warnings.
122 To diagnose the cause of the stall, inspect the stack traces.
123 The offending function will usually be near the top of the stack.
124 If you have a series of stall warnings from a single extended stall,
125 comparing the stack traces can often help determine where the stall
126 is occurring, which will usually be in the function nearest the top of
127 that portion of the stack which remains the same from trace to trace.
128 If you can reliably trigger the stall, ftrace can be quite helpful.
130 RCU bugs can often be debugged with the help of CONFIG_RCU_TRACE
131 and with RCU's event tracing. For information on RCU's event tracing,
132 see include/trace/events/rcu.h.
135 Fine-Tuning the RCU CPU Stall Detector
136 ======================================
138 The rcuupdate.rcu_cpu_stall_suppress module parameter disables RCU's
139 CPU stall detector, which detects conditions that unduly delay RCU grace
140 periods. This module parameter enables CPU stall detection by default,
141 but may be overridden via boot-time parameter or at runtime via sysfs.
142 The stall detector's idea of what constitutes "unduly delayed" is
143 controlled by a set of kernel configuration variables and cpp macros:
145 CONFIG_RCU_CPU_STALL_TIMEOUT
146 ----------------------------
148 This kernel configuration parameter defines the period of time
149 that RCU will wait from the beginning of a grace period until it
150 issues an RCU CPU stall warning. This time period is normally
153 This configuration parameter may be changed at runtime via the
154 /sys/module/rcupdate/parameters/rcu_cpu_stall_timeout, however
155 this parameter is checked only at the beginning of a cycle.
156 So if you are 10 seconds into a 40-second stall, setting this
157 sysfs parameter to (say) five will shorten the timeout for the
158 *next* stall, or the following warning for the current stall
159 (assuming the stall lasts long enough). It will not affect the
160 timing of the next warning for the current stall.
162 Stall-warning messages may be enabled and disabled completely via
163 /sys/module/rcupdate/parameters/rcu_cpu_stall_suppress.
165 CONFIG_RCU_EXP_CPU_STALL_TIMEOUT
166 --------------------------------
168 Same as the CONFIG_RCU_CPU_STALL_TIMEOUT parameter but only for
169 the expedited grace period. This parameter defines the period
170 of time that RCU will wait from the beginning of an expedited
171 grace period until it issues an RCU CPU stall warning. This time
172 period is normally 20 milliseconds on Android devices. A zero
173 value causes the CONFIG_RCU_CPU_STALL_TIMEOUT value to be used,
174 after conversion to milliseconds.
176 This configuration parameter may be changed at runtime via the
177 /sys/module/rcupdate/parameters/rcu_exp_cpu_stall_timeout, however
178 this parameter is checked only at the beginning of a cycle. If you
179 are in a current stall cycle, setting it to a new value will change
180 the timeout for the -next- stall.
182 Stall-warning messages may be enabled and disabled completely via
183 /sys/module/rcupdate/parameters/rcu_cpu_stall_suppress.
185 RCU_STALL_DELAY_DELTA
186 ---------------------
188 Although the lockdep facility is extremely useful, it does add
189 some overhead. Therefore, under CONFIG_PROVE_RCU, the
190 RCU_STALL_DELAY_DELTA macro allows five extra seconds before
191 giving an RCU CPU stall warning message. (This is a cpp
192 macro, not a kernel configuration parameter.)
197 The CPU stall detector tries to make the offending CPU print its
198 own warnings, as this often gives better-quality stack traces.
199 However, if the offending CPU does not detect its own stall in
200 the number of jiffies specified by RCU_STALL_RAT_DELAY, then
201 some other CPU will complain. This delay is normally set to
202 two jiffies. (This is a cpp macro, not a kernel configuration
205 rcupdate.rcu_task_stall_timeout
206 -------------------------------
208 This boot/sysfs parameter controls the RCU-tasks stall warning
209 interval. A value of zero or less suppresses RCU-tasks stall
210 warnings. A positive value sets the stall-warning interval
211 in seconds. An RCU-tasks stall warning starts with the line:
213 INFO: rcu_tasks detected stalls on tasks:
215 And continues with the output of sched_show_task() for each
216 task stalling the current RCU-tasks grace period.
219 Interpreting RCU's CPU Stall-Detector "Splats"
220 ==============================================
222 For non-RCU-tasks flavors of RCU, when a CPU detects that some other
223 CPU is stalling, it will print a message similar to the following::
225 INFO: rcu_sched detected stalls on CPUs/tasks:
226 2-...: (3 GPs behind) idle=06c/0/0 softirq=1453/1455 fqs=0
227 16-...: (0 ticks this GP) idle=81c/0/0 softirq=764/764 fqs=0
228 (detected by 32, t=2603 jiffies, g=7075, q=625)
230 This message indicates that CPU 32 detected that CPUs 2 and 16 were both
231 causing stalls, and that the stall was affecting RCU-sched. This message
232 will normally be followed by stack dumps for each CPU. Please note that
233 PREEMPT_RCU builds can be stalled by tasks as well as by CPUs, and that
234 the tasks will be indicated by PID, for example, "P3421". It is even
235 possible for an rcu_state stall to be caused by both CPUs *and* tasks,
236 in which case the offending CPUs and tasks will all be called out in the list.
237 In some cases, CPUs will detect themselves stalling, which will result
238 in a self-detected stall.
240 CPU 2's "(3 GPs behind)" indicates that this CPU has not interacted with
241 the RCU core for the past three grace periods. In contrast, CPU 16's "(0
242 ticks this GP)" indicates that this CPU has not taken any scheduling-clock
243 interrupts during the current stalled grace period.
245 The "idle=" portion of the message prints the dyntick-idle state.
246 The hex number before the first "/" is the low-order 12 bits of the
247 dynticks counter, which will have an even-numbered value if the CPU
248 is in dyntick-idle mode and an odd-numbered value otherwise. The hex
249 number between the two "/"s is the value of the nesting, which will be
250 a small non-negative number if in the idle loop (as shown above) and a
251 very large positive number otherwise.
253 The "softirq=" portion of the message tracks the number of RCU softirq
254 handlers that the stalled CPU has executed. The number before the "/"
255 is the number that had executed since boot at the time that this CPU
256 last noted the beginning of a grace period, which might be the current
257 (stalled) grace period, or it might be some earlier grace period (for
258 example, if the CPU might have been in dyntick-idle mode for an extended
259 time period). The number after the "/" is the number that have executed
260 since boot until the current time. If this latter number stays constant
261 across repeated stall-warning messages, it is possible that RCU's softirq
262 handlers are no longer able to execute on this CPU. This can happen if
263 the stalled CPU is spinning with interrupts are disabled, or, in -rt
264 kernels, if a high-priority process is starving RCU's softirq handler.
266 The "fqs=" shows the number of force-quiescent-state idle/offline
267 detection passes that the grace-period kthread has made across this
268 CPU since the last time that this CPU noted the beginning of a grace
271 The "detected by" line indicates which CPU detected the stall (in this
272 case, CPU 32), how many jiffies have elapsed since the start of the grace
273 period (in this case 2603), the grace-period sequence number (7075), and
274 an estimate of the total number of RCU callbacks queued across all CPUs
277 If the grace period ends just as the stall warning starts printing,
278 there will be a spurious stall-warning message, which will include
281 INFO: Stall ended before state dump start
283 This is rare, but does happen from time to time in real life. It is also
284 possible for a zero-jiffy stall to be flagged in this case, depending
285 on how the stall warning and the grace-period initialization happen to
286 interact. Please note that it is not possible to entirely eliminate this
287 sort of false positive without resorting to things like stop_machine(),
288 which is overkill for this sort of problem.
290 If all CPUs and tasks have passed through quiescent states, but the
291 grace period has nevertheless failed to end, the stall-warning splat
292 will include something like the following::
294 All QSes seen, last rcu_preempt kthread activity 23807 (4297905177-4297881370), jiffies_till_next_fqs=3, root ->qsmask 0x0
296 The "23807" indicates that it has been more than 23 thousand jiffies
297 since the grace-period kthread ran. The "jiffies_till_next_fqs"
298 indicates how frequently that kthread should run, giving the number
299 of jiffies between force-quiescent-state scans, in this case three,
300 which is way less than 23807. Finally, the root rcu_node structure's
301 ->qsmask field is printed, which will normally be zero.
303 If the relevant grace-period kthread has been unable to run prior to
304 the stall warning, as was the case in the "All QSes seen" line above,
305 the following additional line is printed::
307 rcu_sched kthread starved for 23807 jiffies! g7075 f0x0 RCU_GP_WAIT_FQS(3) ->state=0x1 ->cpu=5
308 Unless rcu_sched kthread gets sufficient CPU time, OOM is now expected behavior.
310 Starving the grace-period kthreads of CPU time can of course result
311 in RCU CPU stall warnings even when all CPUs and tasks have passed
312 through the required quiescent states. The "g" number shows the current
313 grace-period sequence number, the "f" precedes the ->gp_flags command
314 to the grace-period kthread, the "RCU_GP_WAIT_FQS" indicates that the
315 kthread is waiting for a short timeout, the "state" precedes value of the
316 task_struct ->state field, and the "cpu" indicates that the grace-period
317 kthread last ran on CPU 5.
319 If the relevant grace-period kthread does not wake from FQS wait in a
320 reasonable time, then the following additional line is printed::
322 kthread timer wakeup didn't happen for 23804 jiffies! g7076 f0x0 RCU_GP_WAIT_FQS(5) ->state=0x402
324 The "23804" indicates that kthread's timer expired more than 23 thousand
325 jiffies ago. The rest of the line has meaning similar to the kthread
328 Additionally, the following line is printed::
330 Possible timer handling issue on cpu=4 timer-softirq=11142
332 Here "cpu" indicates that the grace-period kthread last ran on CPU 4,
333 where it queued the fqs timer. The number following the "timer-softirq"
334 is the current ``TIMER_SOFTIRQ`` count on cpu 4. If this value does not
335 change on successive RCU CPU stall warnings, there is further reason to
336 suspect a timer problem.
338 These messages are usually followed by stack dumps of the CPUs and tasks
339 involved in the stall. These stack traces can help you locate the cause
340 of the stall, keeping in mind that the CPU detecting the stall will have
341 an interrupt frame that is mainly devoted to detecting the stall.
344 Multiple Warnings From One Stall
345 ================================
347 If a stall lasts long enough, multiple stall-warning messages will
348 be printed for it. The second and subsequent messages are printed at
349 longer intervals, so that the time between (say) the first and second
350 message will be about three times the interval between the beginning
351 of the stall and the first message. It can be helpful to compare the
352 stack dumps for the different messages for the same stalled grace period.
355 Stall Warnings for Expedited Grace Periods
356 ==========================================
358 If an expedited grace period detects a stall, it will place a message
359 like the following in dmesg::
361 INFO: rcu_sched detected expedited stalls on CPUs/tasks: { 7-... } 21119 jiffies s: 73 root: 0x2/.
363 This indicates that CPU 7 has failed to respond to a reschedule IPI.
364 The three periods (".") following the CPU number indicate that the CPU
365 is online (otherwise the first period would instead have been "O"),
366 that the CPU was online at the beginning of the expedited grace period
367 (otherwise the second period would have instead been "o"), and that
368 the CPU has been online at least once since boot (otherwise, the third
369 period would instead have been "N"). The number before the "jiffies"
370 indicates that the expedited grace period has been going on for 21,119
371 jiffies. The number following the "s:" indicates that the expedited
372 grace-period sequence counter is 73. The fact that this last value is
373 odd indicates that an expedited grace period is in flight. The number
374 following "root:" is a bitmask that indicates which children of the root
375 rcu_node structure correspond to CPUs and/or tasks that are blocking the
376 current expedited grace period. If the tree had more than one level,
377 additional hex numbers would be printed for the states of the other
378 rcu_node structures in the tree.
380 As with normal grace periods, PREEMPT_RCU builds can be stalled by
381 tasks as well as by CPUs, and that the tasks will be indicated by PID,
382 for example, "P3421".
384 It is entirely possible to see stall warnings from normal and from
385 expedited grace periods at about the same time during the same run.