X-Git-Url: https://gerrit.opnfv.org/gerrit/gitweb?p=kvmfornfv.git;a=blobdiff_plain;f=kernel%2FDocumentation%2Flockup-watchdogs.txt;h=4a6e33e1af61e8ed2562c4f9f8870eefc1bc9f13;hp=ab0baa692c13be183e0ead6e67ecf9e70afc0dd1;hb=e09b41010ba33a20a87472ee821fa407a5b8da36;hpb=f93b97fd65072de626c074dbe099a1fff05ce060

diff --git a/kernel/Documentation/lockup-watchdogs.txt b/kernel/Documentation/lockup-watchdogs.txt
index ab0baa692..4a6e33e1a 100644
--- a/kernel/Documentation/lockup-watchdogs.txt
+++ b/kernel/Documentation/lockup-watchdogs.txt
@@ -20,8 +20,9 @@ kernel mode for more than 10 seconds (see "Implementation" below for
 details), without letting other interrupts have a chance to run.
 Similarly to the softlockup case, the current stack trace is displayed
 upon detection and the system will stay locked up unless the default
-behavior is changed, which can be done through a compile time knob,
-"BOOTPARAM_HARDLOCKUP_PANIC", and a kernel parameter, "nmi_watchdog"
+behavior is changed, which can be done through a sysctl,
+'hardlockup_panic', a compile time knob, "BOOTPARAM_HARDLOCKUP_PANIC",
+and a kernel parameter, "nmi_watchdog"
 (see "Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt" for details).
 
 The panic option can be used in combination with panic_timeout (this
@@ -61,3 +62,21 @@ As explained above, a kernel knob is provided that allows
 administrators to configure the period of the hrtimer and the perf
 event. The right value for a particular environment is a trade-off
 between fast response to lockups and detection overhead.
+
+By default, the watchdog runs on all online cores.  However, on a
+kernel configured with NO_HZ_FULL, by default the watchdog runs only
+on the housekeeping cores, not the cores specified in the "nohz_full"
+boot argument.  If we allowed the watchdog to run by default on
+the "nohz_full" cores, we would have to run timer ticks to activate
+the scheduler, which would prevent the "nohz_full" functionality
+from protecting the user code on those cores from the kernel.
+Of course, disabling it by default on the nohz_full cores means that
+when those cores do enter the kernel, by default we will not be
+able to detect if they lock up.  However, allowing the watchdog
+to continue to run on the housekeeping (non-tickless) cores means
+that we will continue to detect lockups properly on those cores.
+
+In either case, the set of cores excluded from running the watchdog
+may be adjusted via the kernel.watchdog_cpumask sysctl.  For
+nohz_full cores, this may be useful for debugging a case where the
+kernel seems to be hanging on the nohz_full cores.