The problem:
On -RT, an emulated LAPIC timer instances has the following path:
1) hard interrupt
2) ksoftirqd is scheduled
3) ksoftirqd wakes up vcpu thread
4) vcpu thread is scheduled
This extra context switch introduces unnecessary latency in the
LAPIC path for a KVM guest.
The solution:
Allow waking up vcpu thread from hardirq context,
thus avoiding the need for ksoftirqd to be scheduled.
Normal waitqueues make use of spinlocks, which on -RT
are sleepable locks. Therefore, waking up a waitqueue
waiter involves locking a sleeping lock, which
is not allowed from hard interrupt context.
cyclictest command line:
This patch reduces the average latency in my tests from 14us to 11us.
Cc: stable-rt@vger.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Marcelo Tosatti <mtosatti@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Sebastian Andrzej Siewior <bigeasy@linutronix.de>
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
ff8bba4038