nohz: Basic full dynticks interface

For extreme usecases such as Real Time or HPC, having
the ability to shutdown the tick when a single task runs
on a CPU is a desired feature:

* Reducing the amount of interrupts improves throughput
for CPU-bound tasks. The CPU is less distracted from its
real job, from an execution time and from the cache point
of views.

* This also improve latency response as we have less critical
sections.

Start with introducing a very simple interface to define
full dynticks CPU: use a boot time option defined cpumask
through the "nohz_extended=" kernel parameter. CPUs that
are part of this range will have their tick shutdown
whenever possible: provided they run a single task and
they don't do kernel activity that require the periodic
tick. These details will be later documented in
Documentation/*

An online CPU must be kept outside this range to handle the
timekeeping.

Suggested-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@gmail.com>
Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Chris Metcalf <cmetcalf@tilera.com>
Cc: Christoph Lameter <cl@linux.com>
Cc: Geoff Levand <geoff@infradead.org>
Cc: Gilad Ben Yossef <gilad@benyossef.com>
Cc: Hakan Akkan <hakanakkan@gmail.com>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>
Cc: Kevin Hilman <khilman@linaro.org>
Cc: Li Zhong <zhong@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Cc: Namhyung Kim <namhyung.kim@lge.com>
Cc: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Cc: Paul Gortmaker <paul.gortmaker@windriver.com>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>

1 files changed, 19 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/kernel/time/Kconfig b/kernel/time/Kconfig
index 24510d84efd7..5a87c03e45ad 100644
--- a/kernel/time/Kconfig
+++ b/kernel/time/Kconfig
@@ -79,6 +79,25 @@ config NO_HZ
 	  only trigger on an as-needed basis both when the system is
 	  busy and when the system is idle.
 
+config NO_HZ_EXTENDED
+       bool "Full dynticks system"
+       depends on NO_HZ && RCU_USER_QS && VIRT_CPU_ACCOUNTING_GEN && RCU_NOCB_CPU && SMP
+       select CONTEXT_TRACKING_FORCE
+       help
+         Adaptively try to shutdown the tick whenever possible, even when
+	 the CPU is running tasks. Typically this requires running a single
+	 task on the CPU. Chances for running tickless are maximized when
+	 the task mostly runs in userspace and has few kernel activity.
+
+	 You need to fill up the nohz_extended boot parameter with the
+	 desired range of dynticks CPUs.
+
+	 This is implemented at the expense of some overhead in user <-> kernel
+	 transitions: syscalls, exceptions and interrupts. Even when it's
+	 dynamically off.
+
+	 Say N.
+
 config HIGH_RES_TIMERS
 	bool "High Resolution Timer Support"
 	depends on !ARCH_USES_GETTIMEOFFSET && GENERIC_CLOCKEVENTS