1bc503cb4a
The softlockup detector does some gymnastic with the variable
soft_watchdog_warn. It was added by the commit 58687acba59266735ad
("lockup_detector: Combine nmi_watchdog and softlockup detector").
The purpose is not completely clear. There are the following clues. They
describe the situation how it looked after the above mentioned commit:
1. The variable was checked with a comment "only warn once".
2. The variable was set when softlockup was reported. It was cleared
only when the CPU was not longer in the softlockup state.
3. watchdog_touch_ts was not explicitly updated when the softlockup
was reported. Without this variable, the report would normally
be printed again during every following watchdog_timer_fn()
invocation.
The logic has got even more tangled up by the commit ed235875e2ca98
("kernel/watchdog.c: print traces for all cpus on lockup detection").
After this commit, soft_watchdog_warn is set only when
softlockup_all_cpu_backtrace is enabled. But multiple reports from all
CPUs are prevented by a new variable soft_lockup_nmi_warn.
Conclusion:
The variable probably never worked as intended. In each case, it has not
worked last many years because the softlockup was reported repeatedly
after the full period defined by watchdog_thresh.
The reason is that watchdog gets touched in many known slow paths, for
example, in printk_stack_address(). This code is called also when
printing the softlockup report. It means that the watchdog timestamp gets
updated after each report.
Solution:
Simply remove the logic. People want the periodic report anyway.
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20210311122130.6788-5-pmladek@suse.com
Signed-off-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>
Cc: Laurence Oberman <loberman@redhat.com>
Cc: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: Vincent Whitchurch <vincent.whitchurch@axis.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Linux kernel
============
There are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can
be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. Please read
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst first.
In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``. The formatted documentation can also be read online at:
https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/
There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the Restructured Text markup notation.
Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.