workqueue: Correct/Drop references to gcwq in Documentation
No functional changes. This patch fixes the post gcwq comments in
Documentation/workqueue.txt.
tj: Whitespace adjustments. Minor updates.
Signed-off-by: Libin <huawei.libin@huawei.com>
Signed-off-by: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
diff --git a/Documentation/workqueue.txt b/Documentation/workqueue.txt
index 67113f6..f81a65b 100644
--- a/Documentation/workqueue.txt
+++ b/Documentation/workqueue.txt
@@ -85,16 +85,16 @@
Special purpose threads, called worker threads, execute the functions
off of the queue, one after the other. If no work is queued, the
worker threads become idle. These worker threads are managed in so
-called thread-pools.
+called worker-pools.
The cmwq design differentiates between the user-facing workqueues that
subsystems and drivers queue work items on and the backend mechanism
-which manages thread-pools and processes the queued work items.
+which manages worker-pools and processes the queued work items.
-The backend is called gcwq. There is one gcwq for each possible CPU
-and one gcwq to serve work items queued on unbound workqueues. Each
-gcwq has two thread-pools - one for normal work items and the other
-for high priority ones.
+There are two worker-pools, one for normal work items and the other
+for high priority ones, for each possible CPU and some extra
+worker-pools to serve work items queued on unbound workqueues - the
+number of these backing pools is dynamic.
Subsystems and drivers can create and queue work items through special
workqueue API functions as they see fit. They can influence some
@@ -104,13 +104,12 @@
get a detailed overview refer to the API description of
alloc_workqueue() below.
-When a work item is queued to a workqueue, the target gcwq and
-thread-pool is determined according to the queue parameters and
-workqueue attributes and appended on the shared worklist of the
-thread-pool. For example, unless specifically overridden, a work item
-of a bound workqueue will be queued on the worklist of either normal
-or highpri thread-pool of the gcwq that is associated to the CPU the
-issuer is running on.
+When a work item is queued to a workqueue, the target worker-pool is
+determined according to the queue parameters and workqueue attributes
+and appended on the shared worklist of the worker-pool. For example,
+unless specifically overridden, a work item of a bound workqueue will
+be queued on the worklist of either normal or highpri worker-pool that
+is associated to the CPU the issuer is running on.
For any worker pool implementation, managing the concurrency level
(how many execution contexts are active) is an important issue. cmwq
@@ -118,14 +117,14 @@
Minimal to save resources and sufficient in that the system is used at
its full capacity.
-Each thread-pool bound to an actual CPU implements concurrency
-management by hooking into the scheduler. The thread-pool is notified
+Each worker-pool bound to an actual CPU implements concurrency
+management by hooking into the scheduler. The worker-pool is notified
whenever an active worker wakes up or sleeps and keeps track of the
number of the currently runnable workers. Generally, work items are
not expected to hog a CPU and consume many cycles. That means
maintaining just enough concurrency to prevent work processing from
stalling should be optimal. As long as there are one or more runnable
-workers on the CPU, the thread-pool doesn't start execution of a new
+workers on the CPU, the worker-pool doesn't start execution of a new
work, but, when the last running worker goes to sleep, it immediately
schedules a new worker so that the CPU doesn't sit idle while there
are pending work items. This allows using a minimal number of workers
@@ -135,19 +134,20 @@
for kthreads, so cmwq holds onto idle ones for a while before killing
them.
-For an unbound wq, the above concurrency management doesn't apply and
-the thread-pools for the pseudo unbound CPU try to start executing all
-work items as soon as possible. The responsibility of regulating
-concurrency level is on the users. There is also a flag to mark a
-bound wq to ignore the concurrency management. Please refer to the
-API section for details.
+For unbound workqueues, the number of backing pools is dynamic.
+Unbound workqueue can be assigned custom attributes using
+apply_workqueue_attrs() and workqueue will automatically create
+backing worker pools matching the attributes. The responsibility of
+regulating concurrency level is on the users. There is also a flag to
+mark a bound wq to ignore the concurrency management. Please refer to
+the API section for details.
Forward progress guarantee relies on that workers can be created when
more execution contexts are necessary, which in turn is guaranteed
through the use of rescue workers. All work items which might be used
on code paths that handle memory reclaim are required to be queued on
wq's that have a rescue-worker reserved for execution under memory
-pressure. Else it is possible that the thread-pool deadlocks waiting
+pressure. Else it is possible that the worker-pool deadlocks waiting
for execution contexts to free up.
@@ -168,13 +168,13 @@
WQ_UNBOUND
- Work items queued to an unbound wq are served by a special
- gcwq which hosts workers which are not bound to any specific
- CPU. This makes the wq behave as a simple execution context
- provider without concurrency management. The unbound gcwq
- tries to start execution of work items as soon as possible.
- Unbound wq sacrifices locality but is useful for the following
- cases.
+ Work items queued to an unbound wq are served by the special
+ woker-pools which host workers which are not bound to any
+ specific CPU. This makes the wq behave as a simple execution
+ context provider without concurrency management. The unbound
+ worker-pools try to start execution of work items as soon as
+ possible. Unbound wq sacrifices locality but is useful for
+ the following cases.
* Wide fluctuation in the concurrency level requirement is
expected and using bound wq may end up creating large number
@@ -199,10 +199,10 @@
WQ_HIGHPRI
Work items of a highpri wq are queued to the highpri
- thread-pool of the target gcwq. Highpri thread-pools are
+ worker-pool of the target cpu. Highpri worker-pools are
served by worker threads with elevated nice level.
- Note that normal and highpri thread-pools don't interact with
+ Note that normal and highpri worker-pools don't interact with
each other. Each maintain its separate pool of workers and
implements concurrency management among its workers.
@@ -211,7 +211,7 @@
Work items of a CPU intensive wq do not contribute to the
concurrency level. In other words, runnable CPU intensive
work items will not prevent other work items in the same
- thread-pool from starting execution. This is useful for bound
+ worker-pool from starting execution. This is useful for bound
work items which are expected to hog CPU cycles so that their
execution is regulated by the system scheduler.
@@ -248,9 +248,9 @@
Some users depend on the strict execution ordering of ST wq. The
combination of @max_active of 1 and WQ_UNBOUND is used to achieve this
-behavior. Work items on such wq are always queued to the unbound gcwq
-and only one work item can be active at any given time thus achieving
-the same ordering property as ST wq.
+behavior. Work items on such wq are always queued to the unbound
+worker-pools and only one work item can be active at any given time thus
+achieving the same ordering property as ST wq.
5. Example Execution Scenarios
