Can RCU and CPU hotplug survive the attack of the killer virtual environments?
Channel: LinuxConfAu 2018 - Sydney, Australia
Date: 25/01/2018

Paul E. McKenney

http://lca2018.linux.org.au/schedule/presentation/21/

Virtualization was in use before most linux.conf.au attendees were born, in fact, virtualization was in existence before the speaker was in high school.  Furthermore, Linux has been running on hypervisors of various types for about 20 years.  So one might think that the Linux kernel would have long since completely adapted itself to the realities of virtualization.

One would be wrong.

Virtualization provides additional challenges to concurrent code, for example due to the hypervisor preempting "preempt-disabled" guest-OS code, and even preempting guest-OS code that is under the naive delusion that interrupts have been disabled.  Such preemption can amplify concurrency bugs, and such amplification becomes all the more destructive as people become comfortable with increasing levels of consolidation, resulting in higher CPU utilization and in turn higher probabilities and durations for hypervisor preemption.

This talk will look at a few RCU changes that virtualization has motivated and might motivate in the future.

This talk was given at Linux.conf.au 2018 (LCA2018) which was held on 22-26 January 2018 in Sydney Australia.

linux.conf.au is a conference about the Linux operating system, and all aspects of the thriving ecosystem of Free and Open Source Software that has grown up around it. Run since 1999, in a different Australian or New Zealand city each year, by a team of local volunteers, LCA invites more than 500 people to learn from the people who shape the future of Open Source. For more information on the conference see https://linux.conf.au/

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