timers: Improve get_next_timer_interrupt()

Gilad reported at

 http://lkml.kernel.org/r/1336056962-10465-2-git-send-email-gilad@benyossef.com

"Current timer code fails to correctly return a value meaning that
 there is no future timer event, with the result that the timer keeps
 getting re-armed in HZ one shot mode even when we could turn it off,
 generating unneeded interrupts.

 What is happening is that when __next_timer_interrupt() wishes
 to return a value that signifies "there is no future timer
 event", it returns (base->timer_jiffies + NEXT_TIMER_MAX_DELTA).

 However, the code in tick_nohz_stop_sched_tick(), which called
 __next_timer_interrupt() via get_next_timer_interrupt(),
 compares the return value to (last_jiffies + NEXT_TIMER_MAX_DELTA)
 to see if the timer needs to be re-armed.

 base->timer_jiffies != last_jiffies and so tick_nohz_stop_sched_tick()
 interperts the return value as indication that there is a distant
 future event 12 days from now and programs the timer to fire next
 after KTIME_MAX nsecs instead of avoiding to arm it. This ends up
 causing a needless interrupt once every KTIME_MAX nsecs."

Fix this by using the new active timer accounting. This avoids scans
when no active timer is enqueued completely, so we don't have to rely
on base->timer_next and base->timer_jiffies anymore.

Reported-by: Gilad Ben-Yossef <gilad@benyossef.com>
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@gmail.com>
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20120525214819.317535385@linutronix.de

diff --git a/kernel/timer.c b/kernel/timer.c
index 7fada698bd1a54d015ae7a14fc4badb54cf7d624..a61c09374ebab1fdba0bdd370b56cf70018de62d 100644 (file)
--- a/kernel/timer.c
+++ b/kernel/timer.c
@@ -1326,18 +1326,21 @@ static unsigned long cmp_next_hrtimer_event(unsigned long now,
 unsigned long get_next_timer_interrupt(unsigned long now)
 {
        struct tvec_base *base = __this_cpu_read(tvec_bases);
-       unsigned long expires;
+       unsigned long expires = now + NEXT_TIMER_MAX_DELTA;
 
        /*
         * Pretend that there is no timer pending if the cpu is offline.
         * Possible pending timers will be migrated later to an active cpu.
         */
        if (cpu_is_offline(smp_processor_id()))
-               return now + NEXT_TIMER_MAX_DELTA;
+               return expires;
+
        spin_lock(&base->lock);
-       if (time_before_eq(base->next_timer, base->timer_jiffies))
-               base->next_timer = __next_timer_interrupt(base);
-       expires = base->next_timer;
+       if (base->active_timers) {
+               if (time_before_eq(base->next_timer, base->timer_jiffies))
+                       base->next_timer = __next_timer_interrupt(base);
+               expires = base->next_timer;
+       }
        spin_unlock(&base->lock);
 
        if (time_before_eq(expires, now))