Re: [PATCH v6 5/6] locking/pvqspinlock: Allow 1 lock stealing attempt

From: Waiman Long
Date: Mon Sep 14 2015 - 15:15:30 EST


On 09/14/2015 10:00 AM, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
On Fri, Sep 11, 2015 at 02:37:37PM -0400, Waiman Long wrote:
This patch allows one attempt for the lock waiter to steal the lock
when entering the PV slowpath. This helps to reduce the performance
penalty caused by lock waiter preemption while not having much of
the downsides of a real unfair lock.
@@ -415,8 +458,12 @@ static void pv_wait_head(struct qspinlock *lock, struct mcs_spinlock *node)

for (;; waitcnt++) {
for (loop = SPIN_THRESHOLD; loop; loop--) {
- if (!READ_ONCE(l->locked))
- return;
+ /*
+ * Try to acquire the lock when it is free.
+ */
+ if (!READ_ONCE(l->locked)&&
+ (cmpxchg(&l->locked, 0, _Q_LOCKED_VAL) == 0))
+ goto gotlock;
cpu_relax();
}

This isn't _once_, this is once per 'wakeup'. And note that interrupts
unrelated to the kick can equally wake the vCPU up.


Oh! There is a minor bug that I shouldn't need to have a second READ_ONCE() call here.

As this is the queue head, finding the lock free entitles the vCPU to own the lock. However, because of lock stealing, I can't just write a 1 to the lock and assume thing is all set. That is why I need to use cmpxchg() to make sure that the queue head vCPU can actually get the lock without the lock stolen underneath. I don't count that as lock stealing as it is the rightful owner of the lock.

I am sorry that I should have added a comment to clarify that. Will do so in the next update.

> void queued_spin_lock_slowpath(struct qspinlock *lock, u32 val)
> {
> :
> /*
> * We touched a (possibly) cold cacheline in the per-cpu queue node;
> * attempt the trylock once more in the hope someone let go while we
> * weren't watching.
> */
> if (queued_spin_trylock(lock))
> goto release;

This is the only place where I consider lock stealing happens. Again, I should have a comment in pv_queued_spin_trylock_unfair() to say where it will be called.

Cheers,
Longman
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