Documentation/RCU/stallwarn.txt

Using RCU's CPU Stall Detector

The CONFIG_RCU_CPU_STALL_DETECTOR kernel config parameter enables
RCU's CPU stall detector, which detects conditions that unduly delay
RCU grace periods.  The stall detector's idea of what constitutes
"unduly delayed" is controlled by a pair of C preprocessor macros:

RCU_SECONDS_TILL_STALL_CHECK

	This macro defines the period of time that RCU will wait from
	the beginning of a grace period until it issues an RCU CPU
	stall warning.	It is normally ten seconds.

RCU_SECONDS_TILL_STALL_RECHECK

	This macro defines the period of time that RCU will wait after
	issuing a stall warning until it issues another stall warning.
	It is normally set to thirty seconds.

RCU_STALL_RAT_DELAY

	The CPU stall detector tries to make the offending CPU rat on itself,
	as this often gives better-quality stack traces.  However, if
	the offending CPU does not detect its own stall in the number
	of jiffies specified by RCU_STALL_RAT_DELAY, then other CPUs will
	complain.  This is normally set to two jiffies.

The following problems can result in an RCU CPU stall warning:

o	A CPU looping in an RCU read-side critical section.
	
o	A CPU looping with interrupts disabled.

o	A CPU looping with preemption disabled.

o	For !CONFIG_PREEMPT kernels, a CPU looping anywhere in the kernel
	without invoking schedule().

o	A bug in the RCU implementation.

o	A hardware failure.  This is quite unlikely, but has occurred
	at least once in a former life.  A CPU failed in a running system,
	becoming unresponsive, but not causing an immediate crash.
	This resulted in a series of RCU CPU stall warnings, eventually
	leading the realization that the CPU had failed.

The RCU, RCU-sched, and RCU-bh implementations have CPU stall warning.
SRCU does not do so directly, but its calls to synchronize_sched() will
result in RCU-sched detecting any CPU stalls that might be occurring.

To diagnose the cause of the stall, inspect the stack traces.  The offending
function will usually be near the top of the stack.  If you have a series
of stall warnings from a single extended stall, comparing the stack traces
can often help determine where the stall is occurring, which will usually
be in the function nearest the top of the stack that stays the same from
trace to trace.

RCU bugs can often be debugged with the help of CONFIG_RCU_TRACE.