Re: [RFC PATCH 1/1] kernel/rcu/tree.c: simplify force_quiescent_state()

From: Paul E. McKenney
Date: Tue Jun 17 2014 - 10:55:35 EST


On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 10:55:29PM -0400, Pranith Kumar wrote:
> This might sound really naive, but please bear with me.
>
> force_quiescent_state() used to do a lot of things in the past in addition to
> forcing a quiescent state. (In my reading of the mailing list I found state
> transitions for one).
>
> Now according to the code, what is being done is multiple callers try to go up
> the hierarchy of nodes to see who reaches the root node. The caller reaching the
> root node wins and it acquires root node lock and it gets to set rsp->gp_flags!
>
> At each level of the hierarchy we try to acquire fqslock. This is the only place
> which actually uses fqslock.
>
> I guess this was being done to avoid the contention on fqslock, but all we are
> doing here is setting one flag. This way of acquiring locks might reduce
> contention if every update is trying to do some independent work, but here all
> we are doing is setting the same flag with same value.

Actually, to reduce contention on rnp_root->lock.

The trick is that the "losers" at each level of ->fqslock acquisition go
away. The "winner" ends up doing the real work of setting RCU_GP_FLAG_FQS.

> We can also remove fqslock completely if we do not need this. Also using
> cmpxchg() to set the value of the flag looks like a good idea to avoid taking
> the root node lock. Thoughts?

The ->fqslock funnel was needed to avoid lockups on large systems (many
hundreds or even thousands of CPUs). Moving grace-period responsibilities
from softirq to the grace-period kthreads might have reduced contention
sufficienty to make the ->fqslock funnel unnecessary. However, given
that I don't usually have access to such a large system, I will leave it,
at least for the time being.

But you might be interested in thinking through what else would need to
change in order to make cmpxchg() work. ;-)

Thanx, Paul

> Signed-off-by: Pranith Kumar <bobby.prani@xxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> kernel/rcu/tree.c | 35 +++++++++++++----------------------
> 1 file changed, 13 insertions(+), 22 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/kernel/rcu/tree.c b/kernel/rcu/tree.c
> index f1ba773..9a46f32 100644
> --- a/kernel/rcu/tree.c
> +++ b/kernel/rcu/tree.c
> @@ -2399,36 +2399,27 @@ static void force_qs_rnp(struct rcu_state *rsp,
> static void force_quiescent_state(struct rcu_state *rsp)
> {
> unsigned long flags;
> - bool ret;
> - struct rcu_node *rnp;
> - struct rcu_node *rnp_old = NULL;
> -
> - /* Funnel through hierarchy to reduce memory contention. */
> - rnp = per_cpu_ptr(rsp->rda, raw_smp_processor_id())->mynode;
> - for (; rnp != NULL; rnp = rnp->parent) {
> - ret = (ACCESS_ONCE(rsp->gp_flags) & RCU_GP_FLAG_FQS) ||
> - !raw_spin_trylock(&rnp->fqslock);
> - if (rnp_old != NULL)
> - raw_spin_unlock(&rnp_old->fqslock);
> - if (ret) {
> - ACCESS_ONCE(rsp->n_force_qs_lh)++;
> - return;
> - }
> - rnp_old = rnp;
> + struct rcu_node *rnp_root = rcu_get_root(rsp);
> +
> + /* early test to see if someone already forced a quiescent state
> + */
> + if (ACCESS_ONCE(rsp->gp_flags) & RCU_GP_FLAG_FQS) {
> + ACCESS_ONCE(rsp->n_force_qs_lh)++;
> + return; /* Someone beat us to it. */
> }
> - /* rnp_old == rcu_get_root(rsp), rnp == NULL. */
>
> /* Reached the root of the rcu_node tree, acquire lock. */
> - raw_spin_lock_irqsave(&rnp_old->lock, flags);
> + raw_spin_lock_irqsave(&rnp_root->lock, flags);
> smp_mb__after_unlock_lock();
> - raw_spin_unlock(&rnp_old->fqslock);
> if (ACCESS_ONCE(rsp->gp_flags) & RCU_GP_FLAG_FQS) {
> ACCESS_ONCE(rsp->n_force_qs_lh)++;
> - raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore(&rnp_old->lock, flags);
> - return; /* Someone beat us to it. */
> + raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore(&rnp_root->lock, flags);
> + return; /* Someone actually beat us to it. */
> }
> +
> + /* can we use cmpxchg instead of the above lock? */
> ACCESS_ONCE(rsp->gp_flags) |= RCU_GP_FLAG_FQS;
> - raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore(&rnp_old->lock, flags);
> + raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore(&rnp_root->lock, flags);
> wake_up(&rsp->gp_wq); /* Memory barrier implied by wake_up() path. */
> }
>
> --
> 1.9.1
>

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