Re: [PATCH 19/19] mm: filemap: Avoid unnecessary barries and waitqueue lookups in unlock_page fastpath

From: Oleg Nesterov
Date: Wed May 14 2014 - 16:17:39 EST


On 05/14, Oleg Nesterov wrote:
>
> The subsequent discussion was "off-topic", and it seems that the patch
> itself needs a bit more discussion,
>
> On 05/13, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, May 13, 2014 at 01:53:13PM +0100, Mel Gorman wrote:
> > > On Tue, May 13, 2014 at 10:45:50AM +0100, Mel Gorman wrote:
> > > > void unlock_page(struct page *page)
> > > > {
> > > > + wait_queue_head_t *wqh = clear_page_waiters(page);
> > > > +
> > > > VM_BUG_ON_PAGE(!PageLocked(page), page);
> > > > +
> > > > + /*
> > > > + * No additional barrier needed due to clear_bit_unlock barriering all updates
> > > > + * before waking waiters
> > > > + */
> > > > clear_bit_unlock(PG_locked, &page->flags);
> > > > - smp_mb__after_clear_bit();
> > > > - wake_up_page(page, PG_locked);
> > >
> > > This is wrong.
>
> Yes,
>
> > > The smp_mb__after_clear_bit() is still required to ensure
> > > that the cleared bit is visible before the wakeup on all architectures.
>
> But note that "the cleared bit is visible before the wakeup" is confusing.
> I mean, we do not need mb() before __wake_up(). We need it only because
> __wake_up_bit() checks waitqueue_active().

OOPS. Sorry Mel, I wrote this looking at the chunk above. But when I found
the whole patch http://marc.info/?l=linux-mm&m=139997442008267 I see that
it removes waitqueue_active(), so this can be correct. I do not really know,
so far I can't say I fully understand this PageWaiters() trick.

Hmm. But at least prepare_to_wait_exclusive() doesn't look right ;)

If nothing else, this needs abort_exclusive_wait() if killed. And while
"exclusive" is probably fine for __lock_page.*(), I am not sure that
__wait_on_page_locked_*() should be exclusive.

Oleg.

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