Re: [PATCH v2] cgroup/rstat: Reduce cpu_lock hold time in cgroup_rstat_flush_locked()

From: Waiman Long
Date: Thu Nov 02 2023 - 15:08:11 EST



On 11/2/23 00:35, Yosry Ahmed wrote:
On Wed, Nov 1, 2023 at 5:53 PM Waiman Long <longman@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
When cgroup_rstat_updated() isn't being called concurrently with
cgroup_rstat_flush_locked(), its run time is pretty short. When
both are called concurrently, the cgroup_rstat_updated() run time
can spike to a pretty high value due to high cpu_lock hold time in
cgroup_rstat_flush_locked(). This can be problematic if the task calling
cgroup_rstat_updated() is a realtime task running on an isolated CPU
with a strict latency requirement. The cgroup_rstat_updated() call can
happens when there is a page fault even though the task is running in
s/happens/happen

user space most of the time.

The percpu cpu_lock is used to protect the update tree -
updated_next and updated_children. This protection is only needed
when cgroup_rstat_cpu_pop_updated() is being called. The subsequent
flushing operation which can take a much longer time does not need
that protection.
nit: add: as it is already protected by cgroup_rstat_lock.

To reduce the cpu_lock hold time, we need to perform all the
cgroup_rstat_cpu_pop_updated() calls up front with the lock
released afterward before doing any flushing. This patch adds a new
cgroup_rstat_updated_list() function to return a singly linked list of
cgroups to be flushed.

By adding some instrumentation code to measure the maximum elapsed times
of the new cgroup_rstat_updated_list() function and each cpu iteration of
cgroup_rstat_updated_locked() around the old cpu_lock lock/unlock pair
on a 2-socket x86-64 server running parallel kernel build, the maximum
elapsed times are 27us and 88us respectively. The maximum cpu_lock hold
time is now reduced to about 30% of the original.

Below were the run time distribution of cgroup_rstat_updated_list()
during the same period:

Run time Count
-------- -----
t <= 1us 12,574,302
1us < t <= 5us 2,127,482
5us < t <= 10us 8,445
10us < t <= 20us 6,425
20us < t <= 30us 50

Signed-off-by: Waiman Long <longman@xxxxxxxxxx>
LGTM with some nits.

Reviewed-by: Yosry Ahmed <yosryahmed@xxxxxxxxxx>

---
include/linux/cgroup-defs.h | 6 +++++
kernel/cgroup/rstat.c | 45 ++++++++++++++++++++++++-------------
2 files changed, 36 insertions(+), 15 deletions(-)

diff --git a/include/linux/cgroup-defs.h b/include/linux/cgroup-defs.h
index 265da00a1a8b..daaf6d4eb8b6 100644
--- a/include/linux/cgroup-defs.h
+++ b/include/linux/cgroup-defs.h
@@ -491,6 +491,12 @@ struct cgroup {
struct cgroup_rstat_cpu __percpu *rstat_cpu;
struct list_head rstat_css_list;

+ /*
+ * A singly-linked list of cgroup structures to be rstat flushed.
+ * Protected by cgroup_rstat_lock.
Do you think we should mention that this is a scratch area for
cgroup_rstat_flush_locked()? IOW, this field will be invalid or may
contain garbage otherwise.
I can certainly add that into the comment.

It might be also useful to mention that the scope of usage for this is
for each percpu flushing iteration. The cgroup_rstat_lock can be
dropped between percpu flushing iterations, so different flushers can
reuse this field safely because it is re-initialized in every
iteration and only used there.

+ */
+ struct cgroup *rstat_flush_next;
+
/* cgroup basic resource statistics */
struct cgroup_base_stat last_bstat;
struct cgroup_base_stat bstat;
diff --git a/kernel/cgroup/rstat.c b/kernel/cgroup/rstat.c
index d80d7a608141..a86d40ed8bda 100644
--- a/kernel/cgroup/rstat.c
+++ b/kernel/cgroup/rstat.c
@@ -145,6 +145,34 @@ static struct cgroup *cgroup_rstat_cpu_pop_updated(struct cgroup *pos,
return pos;
}

+/*
+ * Return a list of updated cgroups to be flushed
+ */
Why not just on a single line?
/* Return a list of updated cgroups to be flushed */

Yes, it can be compressed into a one liner.

Thanks for the review and suggestion.

Cheers,
Longman