Re: [PATCH]Add notification for active Cell SPU tasks

From: Maynard Johnson
Date: Wed Dec 06 2006 - 17:04:55 EST


Luke Browning wrote:

linuxppc-dev-bounces+lukebrowning=us.ibm.com@xxxxxxxxxx wrote on 12/04/2006 10:26:57:

> linuxppc-dev-bounces+lukebrowning=us.ibm.com@xxxxxxxxxx wrote on
> 01/12/2006 06:01:15 PM:
>
> >
> > Subject: Enable SPU switch notification to detect currently activeSPU tasks.
> >
> > From: Maynard Johnson <maynardj@xxxxxxxxxx>
> >
> > This patch adds to the capability of spu_switch_event_register to notify the
> > caller of currently active SPU tasks. It also exports
> > spu_switch_event_register
> > and spu_switch_event_unregister.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Maynard Johnson <mpjohn@xxxxxxxxxx>
> >
> >
> > Index: linux-2.6.19-rc6-
> > arnd1+patches/arch/powerpc/platforms/cell/spufs/sched.c
> > ===================================================================
> > --- linux-2.6.19-rc6-arnd1+patches.
> > orig/arch/powerpc/platforms/cell/spufs/sched.c 2006-11-24 11:34:
> > 44.884455680 -0600
> > +++ linux-2.6.19-rc6-
> > arnd1+patches/arch/powerpc/platforms/cell/spufs/sched.c 2006-12-01
> > 13:57:21.864583264 -0600
> > @@ -84,15 +84,37 @@
> > ctx ? ctx->object_id : 0, spu);
> > }
> > > > +static void notify_spus_active(void)
> > +{
> > + int node;
> > + for (node = 0; node < MAX_NUMNODES; node++) {
> > + struct spu *spu;
> > + mutex_lock(&spu_prio->active_mutex[node]);
> > + list_for_each_entry(spu, &spu_prio->active_list[node], list) {
> > + struct spu_context *ctx = spu->ctx;
> > + blocking_notifier_call_chain(&spu_switch_notifier,
> > + ctx ? ctx->object_id : 0, spu);
> > + }
> > + mutex_unlock(&spu_prio->active_mutex[node]);
> > + }
> > +
> > +}
> > +
> > int spu_switch_event_register(struct notifier_block * n)
> > {
> > - return blocking_notifier_chain_register(&spu_switch_notifier, n);
> > + int ret;
> > + ret = blocking_notifier_chain_register(&spu_switch_notifier, n);
> > + if (!ret)
> > + notify_spus_active();
> > + return ret;
> > }
> > +EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(spu_switch_event_register);
> > > > int spu_switch_event_unregister(struct notifier_block * n)
> > {
> > return blocking_notifier_chain_unregister(&spu_switch_notifier, n);
> > }
> > +EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(spu_switch_event_unregister);
> > > > > > static inline void bind_context(struct spu *spu, struct spu_context *ctx)
>
> Is this really the right strategy? First, it serializes all spu context
> switching at the node level. Second, it performs 17 callouts for

I could be wrong, but I think if we moved the mutex_lock to be inside of the list_for_each_entry loop, we could have a race condition. For example, we obtain the next spu item from the spu_prio->active_mutex list, then wait on the mutex which is being held for the purpose of removing the very spu context we just obtained.

> every context
> switch. Can't oprofile internally derive the list of active spus from the > context switch callout.

Arnd would certainly know the answer to this off the top of his head, but when I initially discussed the idea for this patch with him (probably a couple months ago or so), he didn't suggest a better alternative. Perhaps there is a way to do this with current SPUFS code. Arnd, any comments on this?

>
> Also, the notify_spus_active() callout is dependent on the return code of
> spu_switch_notify(). Should notification be hierarchical? If I
> only register
> for the second one, should my notification be dependent on the return code
> of some non-related subsystem's handler.

I'm not exactly sure what you're saying here. Are you suggesting that a user may only be interested in acitve SPU notification and, therefore, shouldn't have to be depenent on the "standard" notification registration succeeding? There may be a case for adding a new registration function, I suppose; although, I'm not aware of any other users of the SPUFS notification mechanism besides OProfile and PDT, and we need notification of both active and future SPU tasks. But I would not object to a new function.

>
> Does blocking_callchain_notifier internally check for the presence
> of registered
> handlers before it takes locks ...? We should ensure that there is
> minimal overhead
> when there are no registered handlers.

I won't pretend to be expert enough to critique the performance of that code.

>
> Regards,
> Luke___________________

Any comments to my questions above. Seems like oprofile / pdt could derive the
list of active spus from a single context switch callout. This patch will have
a large impact on the performance of the system.

For OProfile, the registration is only done at the time when a user starts the profiler to collect performance data, typically focusing on a single application, so I don't see this as an impact on normal production operations. Since you must have root authority to run OProfile, it cannot be invoked by just any user for nefarious purposes.

-Maynard


Luke

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