Freezer: make kernel threads nonfreezable by default

Currently, the freezer treats all tasks as freezable, except for the kernel
threads that explicitly set the PF_NOFREEZE flag for themselves.  This
approach is problematic, since it requires every kernel thread to either
set PF_NOFREEZE explicitly, or call try_to_freeze(), even if it doesn't
care for the freezing of tasks at all.

It seems better to only require the kernel threads that want to or need to
be frozen to use some freezer-related code and to remove any
freezer-related code from the other (nonfreezable) kernel threads, which is
done in this patch.

The patch causes all kernel threads to be nonfreezable by default (ie.  to
have PF_NOFREEZE set by default) and introduces the set_freezable()
function that should be called by the freezable kernel threads in order to
unset PF_NOFREEZE.  It also makes all of the currently freezable kernel
threads call set_freezable(), so it shouldn't cause any (intentional)
change of behaviour to appear.  Additionally, it updates documentation to
describe the freezing of tasks more accurately.

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: build fixes]
Signed-off-by: Rafael J. Wysocki <rjw@sisk.pl>
Acked-by: Nigel Cunningham <nigel@nigel.suspend2.net>
Cc: Pavel Machek <pavel@ucw.cz>
Cc: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@tv-sign.ru>
Cc: Gautham R Shenoy <ego@in.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>

1 files changed, 0 insertions, 40 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/power/kernel_threads.txt b/Documentation/power/kernel_threads.txt
deleted file mode 100644
index fb57784986b1..000000000000
--- a/Documentation/power/kernel_threads.txt
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,40 +0,0 @@
-KERNEL THREADS
-
-
-Freezer
-
-Upon entering a suspended state the system will freeze all
-tasks. This is done by delivering pseudosignals. This affects
-kernel threads, too. To successfully freeze a kernel thread
-the thread has to check for the pseudosignal and enter the
-refrigerator. Code to do this looks like this:
-
-        do {
-                hub_events();
-                wait_event_interruptible(khubd_wait, !list_empty(&hub_event_list));
-                try_to_freeze();
-        } while (!signal_pending(current));
-
-from drivers/usb/core/hub.c::hub_thread()
-
-
-The Unfreezable
-
-Some kernel threads however, must not be frozen. The kernel must
-be able to finish pending IO operations and later on be able to
-write the memory image to disk. Kernel threads needed to do IO
-must stay awake. Such threads must mark themselves unfreezable
-like this:
-
-        /*
-         * This thread doesn't need any user-level access,
-         * so get rid of all our resources.
-         */
-        daemonize("usb-storage");
-
-        current->flags |= PF_NOFREEZE;
-
-from drivers/usb/storage/usb.c::usb_stor_control_thread()
-
-Such drivers are themselves responsible for staying quiet during
-the actual snapshotting.