Re: [PATCH] block: strip out locking optimization input_io_context()

From: Tejun Heo
Date: Thu Feb 09 2012 - 12:59:51 EST


Hello,

On Thu, Feb 09, 2012 at 02:22:32PM +0800, Shaohua Li wrote:
> >> Tried all the options, the regression still exists. Any new idea?
> >> I'll spend some time on it if I can get anything
> >
> > Can you please try the following one?  Thanks a lot!
> doesn't work.
> I also double confirmed b2efa05265d62 causes the regression

I'll soon send a RCU based version. I'm still having trouble
reproducing the regression tho. I've tried a few different things.

* Heavy thrashing: Disk IO dominates everything and CPUs aren't too
busy. While how swap behaves affects completion time, I don't see
how CPU locking issue comes into play at all under this
circumstance.

* Some swap load: Simulated w/ 1G memory limit and buliding defconfig
kernel in tmpfs. Swap grows to a couple hundred megabytes but build
time is still dominated by CPU. I didn't see any meanginful
difference before and after the commit - both in terms of wallclock
and CPU times.

Maybe these two were too extreme to show the problem and I need to
push memory limit a bit further, but it would be great if you can give
me a bit more details about your testing.

* How much memory does the machine have? How is the tmpfs setup and
filled up? What's the size of the tmpfs and the output of "free -m"
right before test starts? While the test is running, how occupied
are the CPUs? On test completion, what's the output of "free -m"?

* What exactly is the test and what do you measure? What does "12%
regression" mean? Is it wallclock time or CPU time? If it's CPU
time, does systime increase dominate the regression?

Thanks.

--
tejun
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