CONFIG_RCU_TRACE debugfs Files and Formats
The rcutree and rcutiny implementations of RCU provide debugfs trace
output that summarizes counters and state. This information is useful for
debugging RCU itself, and can sometimes also help to debug abuses of RCU.
The following sections describe the debugfs files and formats, first
for rcutree and next for rcutiny.
CONFIG_TREE_RCU and CONFIG_TREE_PREEMPT_RCU debugfs Files and Formats
These implementations of RCU provides five debugfs files under the
top-level directory RCU: rcu/rcudata (which displays fields in struct
rcu_data), rcu/rcudata.csv (which is a .csv spreadsheet version of
rcu/rcudata), rcu/rcugp (which displays grace-period counters),
rcu/rcuhier (which displays the struct rcu_node hierarchy), and
rcu/rcu_pending (which displays counts of the reasons that the
rcu_pending() function decided that there was core RCU work to do).
The output of "cat rcu/rcudata" looks as follows:
rcu_sched:
0 c=17829 g=17829 pq=1 pqc=17829 qp=0 dt=10951/1/0 df=1101 of=0 ri=36 ql=0 b=10
1 c=17829 g=17829 pq=1 pqc=17829 qp=0 dt=16117/1/0 df=1015 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
2 c=17829 g=17829 pq=1 pqc=17829 qp=0 dt=1445/1/0 df=1839 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
3 c=17829 g=17829 pq=1 pqc=17829 qp=0 dt=6681/1/0 df=1545 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
4 c=17829 g=17829 pq=1 pqc=17829 qp=0 dt=1003/1/0 df=1992 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
5 c=17829 g=17830 pq=1 pqc=17829 qp=1 dt=3887/1/0 df=3331 of=0 ri=4 ql=2 b=10
6 c=17829 g=17829 pq=1 pqc=17829 qp=0 dt=859/1/0 df=3224 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
7 c=17829 g=17830 pq=0 pqc=17829 qp=1 dt=3761/1/0 df=1818 of=0 ri=0 ql=2 b=10
rcu_bh:
0 c=-275 g=-275 pq=1 pqc=-275 qp=0 dt=10951/1/0 df=0 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
1 c=-275 g=-275 pq=1 pqc=-275 qp=0 dt=16117/1/0 df=13 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
2 c=-275 g=-275 pq=1 pqc=-275 qp=0 dt=1445/1/0 df=15 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
3 c=-275 g=-275 pq=1 pqc=-275 qp=0 dt=6681/1/0 df=9 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
4 c=-275 g=-275 pq=1 pqc=-275 qp=0 dt=1003/1/0 df=15 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
5 c=-275 g=-275 pq=1 pqc=-275 qp=0 dt=3887/1/0 df=15 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
6 c=-275 g=-275 pq=1 pqc=-275 qp=0 dt=859/1/0 df=15 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
7 c=-275 g=-275 pq=1 pqc=-275 qp=0 dt=3761/1/0 df=15 of=0 ri=0 ql=0 b=10
The first section lists the rcu_data structures for rcu_sched, the second
for rcu_bh. Note that CONFIG_TREE_PREEMPT_RCU kernels will have an
additional section for rcu_preempt. Each section has one line per CPU,
or eight for this 8-CPU system. The fields are as follows:
o The number at the beginning of each line is the CPU number.
CPUs numbers followed by an exclamation mark are offline,
but have been online at least once since boot. There will be
no output for CPUs that have never been online, which can be
a good thing in the surprisingly common case where NR_CPUS is
substantially larger than the number of actual CPUs.
o "c" is the count of grace periods that this CPU believes have
completed. CPUs in dynticks idle mode may lag quite a ways
behind, for example, CPU 4 under "rcu_sched" above, which has
slept through the past 25 RCU grace periods. It is not unusual
to see CPUs lagging by thousands of grace periods.
o "g" is the count of grace periods that this CPU believes have
started. Again, CPUs in dynticks idle mode may lag behind.
If the "c" and "g" values are equal, this CPU has already
reported a quiescent state for the last RCU grace period that
it is aware of, otherwise, the CPU believes that it owes RCU a
quiescent state.
o "pq" indicates that this CPU has passed through a quiescent state
for the current grace period. It is possible for "pq" to be
"1" and "c" different than "g", which indicates that although
the CPU has passed through a quiescent state, either (1) this
CPU has not yet reported that fact, (2) some other CPU has not
yet reported for this grace period, or (3) both.
o "pqc" indicates which grace period the last-observed quiescent
state for this CPU corresponds to. This is important for handling
the race between CPU 0 reporting an extended dynticks-idle
quiescent state for CPU 1 and CPU 1 suddenly waking up and
reporting its own quiescent state. If CPU 1 was the last CPU
for the current grace period, then the CPU that loses this race
will attempt to incorrectly mark CPU 1 as having checked in for
the next grace period!
o "qp" indicates that RCU still expects a quiescent state from
this CPU.
o "dt" is the current value of the dyntick counter that is incremented
when entering or leaving dynticks idle state, either by the
scheduler or by irq. The number after the first "/" is the
interrupt nesting depth when in dyntick-idle state, or one
greater than the interrupt-nesting depth otherwise. The number
after the second "/" is the NMI nesting depth.
This field is displayed only for CONFIG_NO_HZ kernels.
o "df" is the number of times that some other CPU has forced a
quiescent state on behalf of this CPU due to this CPU being in
dynticks-idle state.
This field is displayed only for CONFIG_NO_HZ kernels.
o "of" is the number of times that some other CPU has forced a
quiescent state on behalf of this CPU due to this CPU being
offline. In a perfect world, this might neve happen, but it
turns out that offlining and onlining a CPU can take several grace
periods, and so there is likely to be an extended period of time
when RCU believes that the CPU is online when it really is not.
Please note that erring in the other direction (RCU believing a
CPU is offline when it is really alive and kicking) is a fatal
error, so it makes sense to err conservatively.
o "ri" is the number of times that RCU has seen fit to send a
reschedule IPI to this CPU in order to get it to report a
quiescent state.
o "ql" is the number of RCU callbacks currently residing on
this CPU. This is the total number of callbacks, regardless
of what state they are in (new, waiting for grace period to
start, waiting for grace period to end, ready to invoke).
o "b" is the batch limit for this CPU. If more than this number
of RCU callbacks is ready to invoke, then the remainder will
be deferred.
o "ci" is the number of RCU callbacks that have been invoked for
this CPU. Note that ci+ql is the number of callbacks that have
been registered in absence of CPU-hotplug activity.
o "co" is the number of RCU callbacks that have been orphaned due to
this CPU going offline. These orphaned callbacks have been moved
to an arbitrarily chosen online CPU.
o "ca" is the number of RCU callbacks that have been adopted due to
other CPUs going offline. Note that ci+co-ca+ql is the number of
RCU callbacks registered on this CPU.
There is also an rcu/rcudata.csv file with the same information in
comma-separated-variable spreadsheet format.
The output of "cat rcu/rcugp" looks as follows:
rcu_sched: completed=33062 gpnum=33063
rcu_bh: completed=464 gpnum=464
Again, this output is for both "rcu_sched" and "rcu_bh". Note that
kernels built with CONFIG_TREE_PREEMPT_RCU will have an additional
"rcu_preempt" line. The fields are taken from the rcu_state structure,
and are as follows:
o "completed" is the number of grace periods that have completed.
It is comparable to the "c" field from rcu/rcudata in that a
CPU whose "c" field matches the value of "completed" is aware
that the corresponding RCU grace period has completed.
o "gpnum" is the number of grace periods that have started. It is
comparable to the "g" field from rcu/rcudata in that a CPU
whose "g" field matches the value of "gpnum" is aware that the
corresponding RCU grace period has started.
If these two fields are equal (as they are for "rcu_bh" above),
then there is no grace period in progress, in other words, RCU
is idle. On the other hand, if the two fields differ (as they
do for "rcu_sched" above), then an RCU grace period is in progress.
The output of "cat rcu/rcuhier" looks as follows, with very long lines:
c=6902 g=6903 s=2 jfq=3 j=72c7 nfqs=13142/nfqsng=0(13142) fqlh=6
1/1 .>. 0:127 ^0
3/3 .>. 0:35 ^0 0/0 .>. 36:71 ^1 0/0 .>. 72:107 ^2 0/0 .>. 108:127 ^3
3/3f .>. 0:5 ^0 2/3 .>. 6:11 ^1 0/0 .>. 12:17 ^2 0/0 .>. 18:23 ^3 0/0 .>. 24:29 ^4 0/0 .>. 30:35 ^5 0/0 .>. 36:41 ^0 0/0 .>. 42:47 ^1 0/0 .>. 48:53 ^2 0/0 .>. 54:59 ^3 0/0 .>. 60:65 ^4 0/0 .>. 66:71 ^5 0/0 .>. 72:77 ^0 0/0 .>. 78:83 ^1 0/0 .>. 84:89 ^2 0/0 .>. 90:95 ^3 0/0 .>. 96:101 ^4 0/0 .>. 102:107 ^5 0/0 .>. 108:113 ^0 0/0 .>. 114:119 ^1 0/0 .>. 120:125 ^2 0/0 .>. 126:127 ^3
rcu_bh:
c=-226 g=-226 s=1 jfq=-5701 j=72c7 nfqs=88/nfqsng=0(88) fqlh=0
0/1 .>. 0:127 ^0
0/3 .>. 0:35 ^0 0/0 .>. 36:71 ^1 0/0 .>. 72:107 ^2 0/0 .>. 108:127 ^3
0/3f .>. 0:5 ^0 0/3 .>. 6:11 ^1 0/0 .>. 12:17 ^2 0/0 .>. 18:23 ^3 0/0 .>. 24:29 ^4 0/0 .>. 30:35 ^5 0/0 .>. 36:41 ^0 0/0 .>. 42:47 ^1 0/0 .>. 48:53 ^2 0/0 .>. 54:59 ^3 0/0 .>. 60:65 ^4 0/0 .>. 66:71 ^5 0/0 .>. 72:77 ^0 0/0 .>. 78:83 ^1 0/0 .>. 84:89 ^2 0/0 .>. 90:95 ^3 0/0 .>. 96:101 ^4 0/0 .>. 102:107 ^5 0/0 .>. 108:113 ^0 0/0 .>. 114:119 ^1 0/0 .>. 120:125 ^2 0/0 .>. 126:127 ^3
This is once again split into "rcu_sched" and "rcu_bh" portions,
and CONFIG_TREE_PREEMPT_RCU kernels will again have an additional
"rcu_preempt" section. The fields are as follows:
o "c" is exactly the same as "completed" under rcu/rcugp.
o "g" is exactly the same as "gpnum" under rcu/rcugp.
o "s" is the "signaled" state that drives force_quiescent_state()'s
state machine.
o "jfq" is the number of jiffies remaining for this grace period
before force_quiescent_state() is invoked to help push things
along. Note that CPUs in dyntick-idle mode throughout the grace
period will not report on their own, but rather must be check by
some other CPU via force_quiescent_state().
o "j" is the low-order four hex digits of the jiffies counter.
Yes, Paul did run into a number of problems that turned out to
be due to the jiffies counter no longer counting. Why do you ask?
o "nfqs" is the number of calls to force_quiescent_state() since
boot.
o "nfqsng" is the number of useless calls to force_quiescent_state(),
where there wasn't actually a grace period active. This can
happen due to races. The number in parentheses is the difference
between "nfqs" and "nfqsng", or the number of times that
force_quiescent_state() actually did some real work.
o "fqlh" is the number of calls to force_quiescent_state() that
exited immediately (without even being counted in nfqs above)
due to contention on ->fqslock.
o Each element of the form "1/1 0:127 ^0" represents one struct
rcu_node. Each line represents one level of the hierarchy, from
root to leaves. It is best to think of the rcu_data structures
as forming yet another level after the leaves. Note that there
might be either one, two, or three levels of rcu_node structures,
depending on the relationship between CONFIG_RCU_FANOUT and
CONFIG_NR_CPUS.
o The numbers separated by the "/" are the qsmask followed
by the qsmaskinit. The qsmask will have one bit
set for each entity in the next lower level that
has not yet checked in for the current grace period.
The qsmaskinit will have one bit for each entity that is
currently expected to check in during each grace period.
The value of qsmaskinit is assigned to that of qsmask
at the beginning of each grace period.
For example, for "rcu_sched", the qsmask of the first
entry of the lowest level is 0x14, meaning that we
are still waiting for CPUs 2 and 4 to check in for the
current grace period.
o The characters separated by the ">" indicate the state
of the blocked-tasks lists. A "T" preceding the ">"
indicates that at least one task blocked in an RCU
read-side critical section blocks the current grace
period, while a "." preceding the ">" indicates otherwise.
The character following the ">" indicates similarly for
the next grace period. A "T" should appear in this
field only for rcu-preempt.
o The numbers separated by the ":" are the range of CPUs
served by this struct rcu_node. This can be helpful
in working out how the hierarchy is wired together.
For example, the first entry at the lowest level shows
"0:5", indicating that it covers CPUs 0 through 5.
o The number after the "^" indicates the bit in the
next higher level rcu_node structure that this
rcu_node structure corresponds to.
For example, the first entry at the lowest level shows
"^0", indicating that it corresponds to bit zero in
the first entry at the middle level.
The output of "cat rcu/rcu_pending" looks as follows:
rcu_sched:
0 np=255892 qsp=53936 rpq=85 cbr=0 cng=14417 gpc=10033 gps=24320 nf=6445 nn=146741
1 np=261224 qsp=54638 rpq=33 cbr=0 cng=25723 gpc=16310 gps=2849 nf=5912 nn=155792
2 np=237496 qsp=49664 rpq=23 cbr=0 cng=2762 gpc=45478 gps=1762 nf=1201 nn=136629
3 np=236249 qsp=48766 rpq=98 cbr=0 cng=286 gpc=48049 gps=1218 nf=207 nn=137723
4 np=221310 qsp=46850 rpq=7 cbr=0 cng=26 gpc=43161 gps=4634 nf=3529 nn=123110
5 np=237332 qsp=48449 rpq=9 cbr=0 cng=54 gpc=47920 gps=3252 nf=201 nn=137456
6 np=219995 qsp=46718 rpq=12 cbr=0 cng=50 gpc=42098 gps=6093 nf=4202 nn=120834
7 np=249893 qsp=49390 rpq=42 cbr=0 cng=72 gpc=38400 gps=17102 nf=41 nn=144888
rcu_bh:
0 np=146741 qsp=1419 rpq=6 cbr=0 cng=6 gpc=0 gps=0 nf=2 nn=145314
1 np=155792 qsp=12597 rpq=3 cbr=0 cng=0 gpc=4 gps=8 nf=3 nn=143180
2 np=136629 qsp=18680 rpq=1 cbr=0 cng=0 gpc=7 gps=6 nf=0 nn=117936
3 np=137723 qsp=2843 rpq=0 cbr=0 cng=0 gpc=10 gps=7 nf=0 nn=134863
4 np=123110 qsp=12433 rpq=0 cbr=0 cng=0 gpc=4 gps=2 nf=0 nn=110671
5 np=137456 qsp=4210 rpq=1 cbr=0 cng=0 gpc=6 gps=5 nf=0 nn=133235
6 np=120834 qsp=9902 rpq=2 cbr=0 cng=0 gpc=6 gps=3 nf=2 nn=110921
7 np=144888 qsp=26336 rpq=0 cbr=0 cng=0 gpc=8 gps=2 nf=0 nn=118542
As always, this is once again split into "rcu_sched" and "rcu_bh"
portions, with CONFIG_TREE_PREEMPT_RCU kernels having an additional
"rcu_preempt" section. The fields are as follows:
o "np" is the number of times that __rcu_pending() has been invoked
for the corresponding flavor of RCU.
o "qsp" is the number of times that the RCU was waiting for a
quiescent state from this CPU.
o "rpq" is the number of times that the CPU had passed through
a quiescent state, but not yet reported it to RCU.
o "cbr" is the number of times that this CPU had RCU callbacks
that had passed through a grace period, and were thus ready
to be invoked.
o "cng" is the number of times that this CPU needed another
grace period while RCU was idle.
o "gpc" is the number of times that an old grace period had
completed, but this CPU was not yet aware of it.
o "gps" is the number of times that a new grace period had started,
but this CPU was not yet aware of it.
o "nf" is the number of times that this CPU suspected that the
current grace period had run for too long, and thus needed to
be forced.
Please note that "forcing" consists of sending resched IPIs
to holdout CPUs. If that CPU really still is in an old RCU
read-side critical section, then we really do have to wait for it.
The assumption behing "forcing" is that the CPU is not still in
an old RCU read-side critical section, but has not yet responded
for some other reason.
o "nn" is the number of times that this CPU needed nothing. Alert
readers will note that the rcu "nn" number for a given CPU very
closely matches the rcu_bh "np" number for that same CPU. This
is due to short-circuit evaluation in rcu_pending().
CONFIG_TINY_RCU and CONFIG_TINY_PREEMPT_RCU debugfs Files and Formats
These implementations of RCU provides a single debugfs file under the
top-level directory RCU, namely rcu/rcudata, which displays fields in
rcu_bh_ctrlblk, rcu_sched_ctrlblk and, for CONFIG_TINY_PREEMPT_RCU,
rcu_preempt_ctrlblk.
The output of "cat rcu/rcudata" is as follows:
rcu_preempt: qlen=24 gp=1097669 g197/p197/c197 tasks=...
ttb=. btg=no ntb=184 neb=0 nnb=183 j=01f7 bt=0274
normal balk: nt=1097669 gt=0 bt=371 b=0 ny=25073378 nos=0
exp balk: bt=0 nos=0
rcu_sched: qlen: 0
rcu_bh: qlen: 0
This is split into rcu_preempt, rcu_sched, and rcu_bh sections, with the
rcu_preempt section appearing only in CONFIG_TINY_PREEMPT_RCU builds.
The last three lines of the rcu_preempt section appear only in
CONFIG_RCU_BOOST kernel builds. The fields are as follows:
o "qlen" is the number of RCU callbacks currently waiting either
for an RCU grace period or waiting to be invoked. This is the
only field present for rcu_sched and rcu_bh, due to the
short-circuiting of grace period in those two cases.
o "gp" is the number of grace periods that have completed.
o "g197/p197/c197" displays the grace-period state, with the
"g" number being the number of grace periods that have started
(mod 256), the "p" number being the number of grace periods
that the CPU has responded to (also mod 256), and the "c"
number being the number of grace periods that have completed
(once again mode 256).
Why have both "gp" and "g"? Because the data flowing into
"gp" is only present in a CONFIG_RCU_TRACE kernel.
o "tasks" is a set of bits. The first bit is "T" if there are
currently tasks that have recently blocked within an RCU
read-side critical section, the second bit is "N" if any of the
aforementioned tasks are blocking the current RCU grace period,
and the third bit is "E" if any of the aforementioned tasks are
blocking the current expedited grace period. Each bit is "."
if the corresponding condition does not hold.
o "ttb" is a single bit. It is "B" if any of the blocked tasks
need to be priority boosted and "." otherwise.
o "btg" indicates whether boosting has been carried out during
the current grace period, with "exp" indicating that boosting
is in progress for an expedited grace period, "no" indicating
that boosting has not yet started for a normal grace period,
"begun" indicating that boosting has bebug for a normal grace
period, and "done" indicating that boosting has completed for
a normal grace period.
o "ntb" is the total number of tasks subjected to RCU priority boosting
periods since boot.
o "neb" is the number of expedited grace periods that have had
to resort to RCU priority boosting since boot.
o "nnb" is the number of normal grace periods that have had
to resort to RCU priority boosting since boot.
o "j" is the low-order 12 bits of the jiffies counter in hexadecimal.
o "bt" is the low-order 12 bits of the value that the jiffies counter
will have at the next time that boosting is scheduled to begin.
o In the line beginning with "normal balk", the fields are as follows:
o "nt" is the number of times that the system balked from
boosting because there were no blocked tasks to boost.
Note that the system will balk from boosting even if the
grace period is overdue when the currently running task
is looping within an RCU read-side critical section.
There is no point in boosting in this case, because
boosting a running task won't make it run any faster.
o "gt" is the number of times that the system balked
from boosting because, although there were blocked tasks,
none of them were preventing the current grace period
from completing.
o "bt" is the number of times that the system balked
from boosting because boosting was already in progress.
o "b" is the number of times that the system balked from
boosting because boosting had already completed for
the grace period in question.
o "ny" is the number of times that the system balked from
boosting because it was not yet time to start boosting
the grace period in question.
o "nos" is the number of times that the system balked from
boosting for inexplicable ("not otherwise specified")
reasons. This can actually happen due to races involving
increments of the jiffies counter.
o In the line beginning with "exp balk", the fields are as follows:
o "bt" is the number of times that the system balked from
boosting because there were no blocked tasks to boost.
o "nos" is the number of times that the system balked from
boosting for inexplicable ("not otherwise specified")
reasons.
