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, 4 insertions, 14 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/power/swsusp.txt b/Documentation/power/swsusp.txt
index 152b510d1bb..aea7e920966 100644
--- a/Documentation/power/swsusp.txt
+++ b/Documentation/power/swsusp.txt
@@ -140,21 +140,11 @@ should be sent to the mailing list available through the suspend2
 website, and not to the Linux Kernel Mailing List. We are working
 toward merging suspend2 into the mainline kernel.
 
-Q: A kernel thread must voluntarily freeze itself (call 'refrigerator').
-I found some kernel threads that don't do it, and they don't freeze
-so the system can't sleep. Is this a known behavior?
-
-A: All such kernel threads need to be fixed, one by one. Select the
-place where the thread is safe to be frozen (no kernel semaphores
-should be held at that point and it must be safe to sleep there), and
-add:
-
-       try_to_freeze();
-
-If the thread is needed for writing the image to storage, you should
-instead set the PF_NOFREEZE process flag when creating the thread (and
-be very careful).
+Q: What is the freezing of tasks and why are we using it?
 
+A: The freezing of tasks is a mechanism by which user space processes and some
+kernel threads are controlled during hibernation or system-wide suspend (on some
+architectures).  See freezing-of-tasks.txt for details.
 
 Q: What is the difference between "platform" and "shutdown"?