2010-04-12 18:55:36

by Chris Mason

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: [PATCH RFC] Optimize semtimedop

We've been poking around in semtimedop for a while now, mostly because
it is consistently showing up at the top of the CPU profiles for benchmarking
runs on big numa systems. The biggest problem seems to be the IPC lock, and
the fact that we hold it for a long time while we loop over different lists and
try to do semaphore operations.

Zach Brown came up with a set of patches a while ago that switched away from
the global pending list, and semtimedop was recently optimized for the
single sop case by Nick and Manfred.

This patch series tries to build on ideas from all of these patches. The
list of pending semaphore operations is pushed down to the individual
semaphore and the locking is also pushed down into the semaphore. The
result is much faster with my micro benchmark:

http://oss.oracle.com/~mason/sembench.c

It more than doubles the total number of post/wait cycles the benchmark
is able to get in 30s. Before this patch, semtimedop scored about the
same as futexes for the post/wait cycles, and so now it is 2x faster.

I did run this code through all of the ltp ipc tests, and later this week I
hope to get a full tpc database benchmark on it.


2010-04-12 18:55:21

by Chris Mason

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: [PATCH 2/2] ipc semaphores: order wakeups based on waiter CPU

When IPC semaphores are used in a bulk post and wait system, we
can end up waking a very large number of processes per semtimedop call.
At least one major database will use a single process to kick hundreds
of other processes at a time.

This patch tries to reduce the runqueue lock contention by ordering the
wakeups based on the CPU the waiting process was on when it went to
sleep.

A later patch could add some code in the scheduler to help
wake these up in bulk and take the various runqueue locks less often.

Signed-off-by: Chris Mason <[email protected]>
---
include/linux/sem.h | 1 +
ipc/sem.c | 37 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
2 files changed, 37 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)

diff --git a/include/linux/sem.h b/include/linux/sem.h
index 8b97b51..4a37319 100644
--- a/include/linux/sem.h
+++ b/include/linux/sem.h
@@ -104,6 +104,7 @@ struct sem_array {
struct sem_queue {
struct list_head list; /* queue of pending operations */
struct task_struct *sleeper; /* this process */
+ unsigned long sleep_cpu;
struct sem_undo *undo; /* undo structure */
int pid; /* process id of requesting process */
int status; /* completion status of operation */
diff --git a/ipc/sem.c b/ipc/sem.c
index 335cd35..07fe1d5 100644
--- a/ipc/sem.c
+++ b/ipc/sem.c
@@ -544,6 +544,25 @@ static void wake_up_sem_queue(struct sem_queue *q, int error)
preempt_enable();
}

+/*
+ * sorting helper for struct sem_queues in a list. This is used to
+ * sort by the CPU they are likely to be on when waking them.
+ */
+int list_comp(void *priv, struct list_head *a, struct list_head *b)
+{
+ struct sem_queue *qa;
+ struct sem_queue *qb;
+
+ qa = list_entry(a, struct sem_queue, list);
+ qb = list_entry(b, struct sem_queue, list);
+
+ if (qa->sleep_cpu < qb->sleep_cpu)
+ return -1;
+ if (qa->sleep_cpu > qb->sleep_cpu)
+ return 1;
+ return 0;
+}
+
/**
* update_queue(sma, semnum): Look for tasks that can be completed.
* @sma: semaphore array.
@@ -557,6 +576,7 @@ static void update_queue(struct sem_array *sma, struct list_head *pending_list)
struct sem_queue *q;
LIST_HEAD(new_pending);
LIST_HEAD(work_list);
+ LIST_HEAD(wake_list);

/*
* this seems strange, but what we want to do is process everything
@@ -591,7 +611,10 @@ again:
spin_unlock(&blocker->lock);
continue;
}
- wake_up_sem_queue(q, error);
+ if (error)
+ wake_up_sem_queue(q, error);
+ else
+ list_add_tail(&q->list, &wake_list);

}

@@ -599,6 +622,13 @@ again:
list_splice_init(&new_pending, &work_list);
goto again;
}
+
+ list_sort(NULL, &wake_list, list_comp);
+ while (!list_empty(&wake_list)) {
+ q = list_entry(wake_list.next, struct sem_queue, list);
+ list_del_init(&q->list);
+ wake_up_sem_queue(q, 0);
+ }
}

/* The following counts are associated to each semaphore:
@@ -1440,6 +1470,11 @@ SYSCALL_DEFINE4(semtimedop, int, semid, struct sembuf __user *, tsops,
queue.status = -EINTR;
queue.sleeper = current;

+ /*
+ * the sleep_cpu number allows sorting by the CPU we expect
+ * their runqueue entry to be on..hopefully faster for waking up
+ */
+ queue.sleep_cpu = my_cpu_offset;
current->state = TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE;

/*
--
1.7.0.3

2010-04-12 19:21:45

by Chris Mason

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: [PATCH 1/2] ipc semaphores: reduce ipc_lock contention in semtimedop

One feature of the ipc semaphores is they are defined to be
atomic for the full set of operations done per syscall. So if you do a
semtimedop syscall changing 100 semaphores, the kernel needs to try all
100 changes and only apply them when all 100 are able to succeed without
putting the process to sleep.

Today we use a single lock per semaphore array (the ipc lock). This lock is
held every time we try a set of operations requested by userland, and
when taken again when a process is woken up.

Whenever a given set of changes sent to semtimedop would sleep, that
set is queued up on a big list of pending changes for the entire
semaphore array.

Whenever a semtimedop call changes a single semaphore value, it
walks the entire list of pending operations to see if any of them
can now succeed. The ipc lock is held for this entire loop.

This change makes two major changes, pushing both the list of pending
operations and a spinlock down to each individual semaphore. Now:

Whenever a given semaphore modification is going to block, the set of
operations semtimedop wants to do is saved onto that semaphore's list.

Whenever a givem semtimedop call changes a single semaphore value, it
walks the list of pending operations on that single semaphore to see if
they can now succeed. If any of the operations will block on a
different semaphore, they are moved to that semaphore's list.

The locking is now done per-semaphore. In order to get the changes done
atomically, the lock of every semaphore being changed is taken while we
test the requested operations. We sort the operations by semaphore id
to make sure we don't deadlock in the kernel.

I have a microbenchmark to test how quickly we can post and wait in
bulk. With this change, semtimedop is able do to more than twice
as much work in the same run. On a large numa machine, it brings
the IPC lock system time (reported by perf) down from 85% to 15%.

Signed-off-by: Chris Mason <[email protected]>
---
include/linux/sem.h | 4 +-
ipc/sem.c | 504 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--------------
2 files changed, 372 insertions(+), 136 deletions(-)

diff --git a/include/linux/sem.h b/include/linux/sem.h
index 8a4adbe..8b97b51 100644
--- a/include/linux/sem.h
+++ b/include/linux/sem.h
@@ -86,6 +86,7 @@ struct task_struct;
struct sem {
int semval; /* current value */
int sempid; /* pid of last operation */
+ spinlock_t lock;
struct list_head sem_pending; /* pending single-sop operations */
};

@@ -95,15 +96,12 @@ struct sem_array {
time_t sem_otime; /* last semop time */
time_t sem_ctime; /* last change time */
struct sem *sem_base; /* ptr to first semaphore in array */
- struct list_head sem_pending; /* pending operations to be processed */
struct list_head list_id; /* undo requests on this array */
int sem_nsems; /* no. of semaphores in array */
- int complex_count; /* pending complex operations */
};

/* One queue for each sleeping process in the system. */
struct sem_queue {
- struct list_head simple_list; /* queue of pending operations */
struct list_head list; /* queue of pending operations */
struct task_struct *sleeper; /* this process */
struct sem_undo *undo; /* undo structure */
diff --git a/ipc/sem.c b/ipc/sem.c
index dbef95b..335cd35 100644
--- a/ipc/sem.c
+++ b/ipc/sem.c
@@ -83,6 +83,8 @@
#include <linux/rwsem.h>
#include <linux/nsproxy.h>
#include <linux/ipc_namespace.h>
+#include <linux/sort.h>
+#include <linux/list_sort.h>

#include <asm/uaccess.h>
#include "util.h"
@@ -195,24 +197,23 @@ static inline void sem_rmid(struct ipc_namespace *ns, struct sem_array *s)
* Without the check/retry algorithm a lockless wakeup is possible:
* - queue.status is initialized to -EINTR before blocking.
* - wakeup is performed by
- * * unlinking the queue entry from sma->sem_pending
* * setting queue.status to IN_WAKEUP
* This is the notification for the blocked thread that a
* result value is imminent.
* * call wake_up_process
* * set queue.status to the final value.
* - the previously blocked thread checks queue.status:
- * * if it's IN_WAKEUP, then it must wait until the value changes
- * * if it's not -EINTR, then the operation was completed by
- * update_queue. semtimedop can return queue.status without
- * performing any operation on the sem array.
- * * otherwise it must acquire the spinlock and check what's up.
+ * * if it's IN_WAKEUP, then it must wait until the value changes
+ * * if it's not -EINTR, then the operation was completed by
+ * update_queue. semtimedop can return queue.status without
+ * performing any operation on the sem array.
+ * * otherwise it must find itself on the list of pending operations.
*
* The two-stage algorithm is necessary to protect against the following
* races:
* - if queue.status is set after wake_up_process, then the woken up idle
- * thread could race forward and try (and fail) to acquire sma->lock
- * before update_queue had a chance to set queue.status
+ * thread could race forward and not realize its semaphore operation had
+ * happened.
* - if queue.status is written before wake_up_process and if the
* blocked process is woken up by a signal between writing
* queue.status and the wake_up_process, then the woken up
@@ -275,11 +276,11 @@ static int newary(struct ipc_namespace *ns, struct ipc_params *params)

sma->sem_base = (struct sem *) &sma[1];

- for (i = 0; i < nsems; i++)
+ for (i = 0; i < nsems; i++) {
INIT_LIST_HEAD(&sma->sem_base[i].sem_pending);
+ spin_lock_init(&sma->sem_base[i].lock);
+ }

- sma->complex_count = 0;
- INIT_LIST_HEAD(&sma->sem_pending);
INIT_LIST_HEAD(&sma->list_id);
sma->sem_nsems = nsems;
sma->sem_ctime = get_seconds();
@@ -338,34 +339,115 @@ SYSCALL_DEFINE3(semget, key_t, key, int, nsems, int, semflg)
}

/*
+ * when a semaphore is modified, we want to retry the series of operations
+ * for anyone that was blocking on that semaphore. This breaks down into
+ * a few different common operations:
+ *
+ * 1) One modification releases one or more waiters for zero.
+ * 2) Many waiters are trying to get a single lock, only one will get it.
+ * 3) Many modifications to the count will succeed.
+ *
+ * For case one, we copy over anyone waiting for zero when the semval is
+ * zero. We don't bother copying them over if the semval isn't zero yet.
+ *
+ * For case two, we copy over the first queue trying to modify the semaphore,
+ * assuming it is trying to get a lock.
+ *
+ * For case three, after the first queue trying to change this semaphore is
+ * run, it will call this function again. It'll find the next queue
+ * that wants to change things at that time.
+ *
+ * The goal behind all of this is to avoid retrying atomic ops that have
+ * no hope of actually completing. It is optimized for the case where a
+ * call modifies a single semaphore at a time.
+ */
+static void copy_sem_queue(unsigned long semval,
+ unsigned short sem_num, struct list_head *queue,
+ struct list_head *dest)
+{
+ struct sem_queue *q;
+ struct sem_queue *safe;
+
+ list_for_each_entry_safe(q, safe, queue, list) {
+ /*
+ * if this is a complex operation, we don't really know what is
+ * going on. Splice the whole list over to preserve the queue
+ * order.
+ */
+ if (q->sops[0].sem_num != sem_num) {
+ list_splice_tail_init(queue, dest);
+ break;
+ }
+
+ /*
+ * they are waiting for zero, leave it on the list if
+ * we're not at zero yet, otherwise copy it over
+ */
+ if (q->sops[0].sem_op == 0) {
+ if (semval == 0) {
+ list_del(&q->list);
+ list_add_tail(&q->list, dest);
+ }
+ continue;
+ }
+
+ /*
+ * at this point we know the first sop in the queue is
+ * changing this semaphore. Copy this one queue over
+ * and leave the rest. If more than one alter is going
+ * to succeed, the others will bubble in after each
+ * one is able to modify the queue.
+ */
+ list_del(&q->list);
+ list_add_tail(&q->list, dest);
+ break;
+ }
+}
+
+/*
* Determine whether a sequence of semaphore operations would succeed
* all at once. Return 0 if yes, 1 if need to sleep, else return error code.
*/
-
-static int try_atomic_semop (struct sem_array * sma, struct sembuf * sops,
- int nsops, struct sem_undo *un, int pid)
+static noinline int try_atomic_semop (struct sem_array * sma, struct sembuf * sops,
+ int nsops, struct sem_undo *un, int pid,
+ struct list_head *pending, struct sem **blocker)
{
int result, sem_op;
struct sembuf *sop;
struct sem * curr;
+ int last = 0;

for (sop = sops; sop < sops + nsops; sop++) {
curr = sma->sem_base + sop->sem_num;
+
+ /*
+ * deal with userland sending the same
+ * sem_num twice. Thanks to sort they will
+ * be adjacent. We unlock in the loops below.
+ */
+ if (sop == sops || last != sop->sem_num)
+ spin_lock(&curr->lock);
+
+ last = sop->sem_num;
sem_op = sop->sem_op;
result = curr->semval;
-
- if (!sem_op && result)
+
+ if (!sem_op && result) {
+ *blocker = curr;
goto would_block;
+ }

result += sem_op;
- if (result < 0)
+ if (result < 0) {
+ *blocker = curr;
goto would_block;
+ }
if (result > SEMVMX)
goto out_of_range;
if (sop->sem_flg & SEM_UNDO) {
int undo = un->semadj[sop->sem_num] - sem_op;
/*
- * Exceeding the undo range is an error.
+ * Exceeding the undo range is an error.
*/
if (undo < (-SEMAEM - 1) || undo > SEMAEM)
goto out_of_range;
@@ -380,7 +462,27 @@ static int try_atomic_semop (struct sem_array * sma, struct sembuf * sops,
un->semadj[sop->sem_num] -= sop->sem_op;
sop--;
}
-
+
+ /*
+ * our operation is going to succeed, do any list splicing
+ * required so that we can try to wakeup people waiting on the
+ * sems we've changed.
+ */
+ for (sop = sops; sop < sops + nsops; sop++) {
+ /* if there are duplicate sem_nums in the list
+ * we only want to process the first one
+ */
+ if (sop != sops && last == sop->sem_num)
+ continue;
+
+ curr = sma->sem_base + sop->sem_num;
+ if (sop->sem_op)
+ copy_sem_queue(curr->semval, sop->sem_num,
+ &curr->sem_pending, pending);
+ spin_unlock(&curr->lock);
+ last = sop->sem_num;
+ }
+
sma->sem_otime = get_seconds();
return 0;

@@ -389,15 +491,32 @@ out_of_range:
goto undo;

would_block:
- if (sop->sem_flg & IPC_NOWAIT)
+ if (sop->sem_flg & IPC_NOWAIT) {
result = -EAGAIN;
- else
+ if (*blocker) {
+ /*
+ * the blocker doesn't put itself on any
+ * list for -EAGAIN, unlock it here
+ */
+ spin_unlock(&(*blocker)->lock);
+ *blocker = NULL;
+ }
+ } else
result = 1;

undo:
sop--;
while (sop >= sops) {
- sma->sem_base[sop->sem_num].semval -= sop->sem_op;
+ curr = sma->sem_base + sop->sem_num;
+
+ curr->semval -= sop->sem_op;
+ /* we leave the blocker locked, and we make sure not
+ * to unlock duplicates in the list twice
+ */
+ if (curr != *blocker &&
+ (sop == sops || (sop - 1)->sem_num != sop->sem_num)) {
+ spin_unlock(&curr->lock);
+ }
sop--;
}

@@ -425,88 +544,60 @@ static void wake_up_sem_queue(struct sem_queue *q, int error)
preempt_enable();
}

-static void unlink_queue(struct sem_array *sma, struct sem_queue *q)
-{
- list_del(&q->list);
- if (q->nsops == 1)
- list_del(&q->simple_list);
- else
- sma->complex_count--;
-}
-
-
/**
* update_queue(sma, semnum): Look for tasks that can be completed.
* @sma: semaphore array.
- * @semnum: semaphore that was modified.
+ * @pending_list: list of struct sem_queues to try
*
* update_queue must be called after a semaphore in a semaphore array
- * was modified. If multiple semaphore were modified, then @semnum
- * must be set to -1.
+ * was modified.
*/
-static void update_queue(struct sem_array *sma, int semnum)
+static void update_queue(struct sem_array *sma, struct list_head *pending_list)
{
struct sem_queue *q;
- struct list_head *walk;
- struct list_head *pending_list;
- int offset;
+ LIST_HEAD(new_pending);
+ LIST_HEAD(work_list);

- /* if there are complex operations around, then knowing the semaphore
- * that was modified doesn't help us. Assume that multiple semaphores
- * were modified.
+ /*
+ * this seems strange, but what we want to do is process everything
+ * on the pending list, and then process any queues that have a chance
+ * to finish because of processing the pending list.
+ *
+ * So, we send new_pending to try_atomic_semop each time, and it
+ * splices any additional queues we have to try into new_pending.
+ * When the work list is empty, we splice new_pending into the
+ * work list and loop again.
+ *
+ * At the end of the whole thing, after we've built the largest
+ * possible list of tasks to wake up, we wake them in bulk.
*/
- if (sma->complex_count)
- semnum = -1;
-
- if (semnum == -1) {
- pending_list = &sma->sem_pending;
- offset = offsetof(struct sem_queue, list);
- } else {
- pending_list = &sma->sem_base[semnum].sem_pending;
- offset = offsetof(struct sem_queue, simple_list);
- }
-
+ list_splice_init(pending_list, &work_list);
again:
- walk = pending_list->next;
- while (walk != pending_list) {
- int error, alter;
-
- q = (struct sem_queue *)((char *)walk - offset);
- walk = walk->next;
-
- /* If we are scanning the single sop, per-semaphore list of
- * one semaphore and that semaphore is 0, then it is not
- * necessary to scan the "alter" entries: simple increments
- * that affect only one entry succeed immediately and cannot
- * be in the per semaphore pending queue, and decrements
- * cannot be successful if the value is already 0.
- */
- if (semnum != -1 && sma->sem_base[semnum].semval == 0 &&
- q->alter)
- break;
+ while (!list_empty(&work_list)) {
+ struct sem *blocker;
+ int error;

+ q = list_entry(work_list.next, struct sem_queue, list);
+ list_del_init(&q->list);
+
+ blocker = NULL;
error = try_atomic_semop(sma, q->sops, q->nsops,
- q->undo, q->pid);
+ q->undo, q->pid, &new_pending,
+ &blocker);

/* Does q->sleeper still need to sleep? */
- if (error > 0)
+ if (error > 0) {
+ list_add_tail(&q->list, &blocker->sem_pending);
+ spin_unlock(&blocker->lock);
continue;
+ }
+ wake_up_sem_queue(q, error);

- unlink_queue(sma, q);
+ }

- /*
- * The next operation that must be checked depends on the type
- * of the completed operation:
- * - if the operation modified the array, then restart from the
- * head of the queue and check for threads that might be
- * waiting for the new semaphore values.
- * - if the operation didn't modify the array, then just
- * continue.
- */
- alter = q->alter;
- wake_up_sem_queue(q, error);
- if (alter && !error)
- goto again;
+ if (!list_empty(&new_pending)) {
+ list_splice_init(&new_pending, &work_list);
+ goto again;
}
}

@@ -523,9 +614,11 @@ static int count_semncnt (struct sem_array * sma, ushort semnum)
{
int semncnt;
struct sem_queue * q;
+ struct sem *curr;

+ curr = &sma->sem_base[semnum];
semncnt = 0;
- list_for_each_entry(q, &sma->sem_pending, list) {
+ list_for_each_entry(q, &curr->sem_pending, list) {
struct sembuf * sops = q->sops;
int nsops = q->nsops;
int i;
@@ -542,9 +635,12 @@ static int count_semzcnt (struct sem_array * sma, ushort semnum)
{
int semzcnt;
struct sem_queue * q;
+ struct sem *curr;
+
+ curr = &sma->sem_base[semnum];

semzcnt = 0;
- list_for_each_entry(q, &sma->sem_pending, list) {
+ list_for_each_entry(q, &curr->sem_pending, list) {
struct sembuf * sops = q->sops;
int nsops = q->nsops;
int i;
@@ -572,6 +668,7 @@ static void freeary(struct ipc_namespace *ns, struct kern_ipc_perm *ipcp)
struct sem_undo *un, *tu;
struct sem_queue *q, *tq;
struct sem_array *sma = container_of(ipcp, struct sem_array, sem_perm);
+ int i;

/* Free the existing undo structures for this semaphore set. */
assert_spin_locked(&sma->sem_perm.lock);
@@ -584,10 +681,15 @@ static void freeary(struct ipc_namespace *ns, struct kern_ipc_perm *ipcp)
call_rcu(&un->rcu, free_un);
}

- /* Wake up all pending processes and let them fail with EIDRM. */
- list_for_each_entry_safe(q, tq, &sma->sem_pending, list) {
- unlink_queue(sma, q);
- wake_up_sem_queue(q, -EIDRM);
+
+ for (i = 0; i < sma->sem_nsems; i++) {
+ struct sem *curr = sma->sem_base + i;
+ spin_lock(&curr->lock);
+ list_for_each_entry_safe(q, tq, &curr->sem_pending, list) {
+ list_del_init(&q->list);
+ wake_up_sem_queue(q, -EIDRM);
+ }
+ spin_unlock(&curr->lock);
}

/* Remove the semaphore set from the IDR */
@@ -766,6 +868,7 @@ static int semctl_main(struct ipc_namespace *ns, int semid, int semnum,
{
int i;
struct sem_undo *un;
+ LIST_HEAD(pending);

sem_getref_and_unlock(sma);

@@ -797,8 +900,15 @@ static int semctl_main(struct ipc_namespace *ns, int semid, int semnum,
goto out_free;
}

- for (i = 0; i < nsems; i++)
- sma->sem_base[i].semval = sem_io[i];
+ for (i = 0; i < nsems; i++) {
+ curr = &sma->sem_base[i];
+
+ spin_lock(&curr->lock);
+ curr->semval = sem_io[i];
+ copy_sem_queue(curr->semval, i,
+ &curr->sem_pending, &pending);
+ spin_unlock(&curr->lock);
+ }

assert_spin_locked(&sma->sem_perm.lock);
list_for_each_entry(un, &sma->list_id, list_id) {
@@ -807,7 +917,7 @@ static int semctl_main(struct ipc_namespace *ns, int semid, int semnum,
}
sma->sem_ctime = get_seconds();
/* maybe some queued-up processes were waiting for this */
- update_queue(sma, -1);
+ update_queue(sma, &pending);
err = 0;
goto out_unlock;
}
@@ -836,6 +946,7 @@ static int semctl_main(struct ipc_namespace *ns, int semid, int semnum,
{
int val = arg.val;
struct sem_undo *un;
+ LIST_HEAD(pending);

err = -ERANGE;
if (val > SEMVMX || val < 0)
@@ -845,11 +956,16 @@ static int semctl_main(struct ipc_namespace *ns, int semid, int semnum,
list_for_each_entry(un, &sma->list_id, list_id)
un->semadj[semnum] = 0;

+ spin_lock(&curr->lock);
curr->semval = val;
+ copy_sem_queue(curr->semval, semnum,
+ &curr->sem_pending, &pending);
curr->sempid = task_tgid_vnr(current);
+ spin_unlock(&curr->lock);
+
sma->sem_ctime = get_seconds();
/* maybe some queued-up processes were waiting for this */
- update_queue(sma, semnum);
+ update_queue(sma, &pending);
err = 0;
goto out_unlock;
}
@@ -1117,6 +1233,67 @@ out:
return un;
}

+/*
+ * since we take spinlocks on the semaphores based on the
+ * values from userland, we have to sort them to make sure
+ * we lock them in order
+ */
+static int sembuf_compare(const void *a, const void *b)
+{
+ const struct sembuf *abuf = a;
+ const struct sembuf *bbuf = b;
+
+ if (abuf->sem_num < bbuf->sem_num)
+ return -1;
+ if (abuf->sem_num > bbuf->sem_num)
+ return 1;
+ return 0;
+}
+
+/*
+ * if a process wakes up on its own while on a semaphore list
+ * we have to take it off the list before that process can exit.
+ *
+ * We check all the semaphore's the sem_queue was trying to modify
+ * and if we find the sem_queue, we remove it and return.
+ *
+ * If we don't find the sem_queue its because someone is about to
+ * wake us up, and they have removed us from the list.
+ * We schedule and try again in hopes that they do it real soon now.
+ *
+ * We check queue->status to detect if someone did actually manage to
+ * wake us up.
+ */
+static int remove_queue_from_lists(struct sem_array *sma,
+ struct sem_queue *queue)
+{
+ struct sembuf *sops = queue->sops;
+ struct sembuf *sop;
+ struct sem * curr;
+ struct sem_queue *test;
+
+again:
+ for (sop = sops; sop < sops + queue->nsops; sop++) {
+ curr = sma->sem_base + sop->sem_num;
+ spin_lock(&curr->lock);
+ list_for_each_entry(test, &curr->sem_pending, list) {
+ if (test == queue) {
+ list_del(&test->list);
+ spin_unlock(&curr->lock);
+ goto found;
+ }
+ }
+ spin_unlock(&curr->lock);
+ }
+ if (queue->status == -EINTR) {
+ set_current_state(TASK_RUNNING);
+ schedule();
+ goto again;
+ }
+found:
+ return 0;
+}
+
SYSCALL_DEFINE4(semtimedop, int, semid, struct sembuf __user *, tsops,
unsigned, nsops, const struct timespec __user *, timeout)
{
@@ -1129,6 +1306,8 @@ SYSCALL_DEFINE4(semtimedop, int, semid, struct sembuf __user *, tsops,
struct sem_queue queue;
unsigned long jiffies_left = 0;
struct ipc_namespace *ns;
+ struct sem *blocker = NULL;
+ LIST_HEAD(pending);

ns = current->nsproxy->ipc_ns;

@@ -1168,6 +1347,14 @@ SYSCALL_DEFINE4(semtimedop, int, semid, struct sembuf __user *, tsops,
alter = 1;
}

+ /*
+ * try_atomic_semop takes all the locks of all the semaphores in
+ * the sops array. We have to make sure we don't deadlock if userland
+ * happens to send them out of order, so we sort them by semnum.
+ */
+ if (nsops > 1)
+ sort(sops, nsops, sizeof(*sops), sembuf_compare, NULL);
+
if (undos) {
un = find_alloc_undo(ns, semid);
if (IS_ERR(un)) {
@@ -1222,45 +1409,52 @@ SYSCALL_DEFINE4(semtimedop, int, semid, struct sembuf __user *, tsops,
if (error)
goto out_unlock_free;

- error = try_atomic_semop (sma, sops, nsops, un, task_tgid_vnr(current));
+ /*
+ * undos are scary, keep the lock if we have to deal with undos.
+ * Otherwise, drop the big fat ipc lock and use the fine grained
+ * per-semaphore locks instead.
+ */
+ if (!un)
+ sem_getref_and_unlock(sma);
+
+ error = try_atomic_semop (sma, sops, nsops, un, task_tgid_vnr(current),
+ &pending, &blocker);
if (error <= 0) {
if (alter && error == 0)
- update_queue(sma, (nsops == 1) ? sops[0].sem_num : -1);
-
- goto out_unlock_free;
+ update_queue(sma, &pending);
+ if (un)
+ goto out_unlock_free;
+ else
+ goto out_putref;
}

/* We need to sleep on this operation, so we put the current
* task into the pending queue and go to sleep.
*/
-
+
queue.sops = sops;
queue.nsops = nsops;
queue.undo = un;
queue.pid = task_tgid_vnr(current);
queue.alter = alter;
- if (alter)
- list_add_tail(&queue.list, &sma->sem_pending);
- else
- list_add(&queue.list, &sma->sem_pending);
-
- if (nsops == 1) {
- struct sem *curr;
- curr = &sma->sem_base[sops->sem_num];
-
- if (alter)
- list_add_tail(&queue.simple_list, &curr->sem_pending);
- else
- list_add(&queue.simple_list, &curr->sem_pending);
- } else {
- INIT_LIST_HEAD(&queue.simple_list);
- sma->complex_count++;
- }
-
queue.status = -EINTR;
queue.sleeper = current;
+
current->state = TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE;
- sem_unlock(sma);
+
+ /*
+ * we could be woken up at any time after we add ourselves to the
+ * blocker's list and unlock the spinlock. So, all queue setup
+ * must be done before this point
+ */
+ if (alter)
+ list_add_tail(&queue.list, &blocker->sem_pending);
+ else
+ list_add(&queue.list, &blocker->sem_pending);
+ spin_unlock(&blocker->lock);
+
+ if (un)
+ sem_getref_and_unlock(sma);

if (timeout)
jiffies_left = schedule_timeout(jiffies_left);
@@ -1268,40 +1462,76 @@ SYSCALL_DEFINE4(semtimedop, int, semid, struct sembuf __user *, tsops,
schedule();

error = queue.status;
+
while(unlikely(error == IN_WAKEUP)) {
cpu_relax();
error = queue.status;
}

- if (error != -EINTR) {
+ /*
+ * we are lock free right here, and we could have timed out or
+ * gotten a signal, so we need to be really careful with how we
+ * play with queue.status. It has three possible states:
+ *
+ * -EINTR, which means nobody has changed it since we slept. This
+ * means we woke up on our own.
+ *
+ * IN_WAKEUP, someone is currently waking us up. We need to loop
+ * here until they change it to the operation error value. If
+ * we don't loop, our process could exit before they are done waking us
+ *
+ * operation error value: we've been properly woken up and can exit
+ * at any time.
+ *
+ * If queue.status is currently -EINTR, we are still being processed
+ * by the semtimedop core. Someone either has us on a list head
+ * or is currently poking our queue struct. We need to find that
+ * reference and remove it, which is what remove_queue_from_lists
+ * does.
+ *
+ * We always check for both -EINTR and IN_WAKEUP because we have no
+ * locks held. Someone could change us from -EINTR to IN_WAKEUP at
+ * any time.
+ */
+ if (error != -EINTR && error != IN_WAKEUP) {
/* fast path: update_queue already obtained all requested
* resources */
- goto out_free;
- }
-
- sma = sem_lock(ns, semid);
- if (IS_ERR(sma)) {
- error = -EIDRM;
- goto out_free;
+ goto out_putref;
}

/*
- * If queue.status != -EINTR we are woken up by another process
+ * Someone has a reference on us, lets find it.
*/
+ remove_queue_from_lists(sma, &queue);
+
+ /* check the status again in case we were woken up */
error = queue.status;
- if (error != -EINTR) {
- goto out_unlock_free;
+ while(unlikely(error == IN_WAKEUP)) {
+ cpu_relax();
+ error = queue.status;
}

/*
+ * at this point we know nobody can possibly wake us up, if error
+ * isn't -EINTR, the wakeup did happen and our semaphore operation is
+ * complete. Otherwise, we return -EAGAIN.
+ */
+ if (error != -EINTR)
+ goto out_putref;
+
+ /*
* If an interrupt occurred we have to clean up the queue
*/
if (timeout && jiffies_left == 0)
error = -EAGAIN;
- unlink_queue(sma, &queue);
+
+out_putref:
+ sem_putref(sma);
+ goto out_free;

out_unlock_free:
sem_unlock(sma);
+
out_free:
if(sops != fast_sops)
kfree(sops);
@@ -1360,11 +1590,14 @@ void exit_sem(struct task_struct *tsk)
return;

for (;;) {
+ struct list_head pending;
struct sem_array *sma;
struct sem_undo *un;
int semid;
int i;

+ INIT_LIST_HEAD(&pending);
+
rcu_read_lock();
un = list_entry_rcu(ulp->list_proc.next,
struct sem_undo, list_proc);
@@ -1404,6 +1637,7 @@ void exit_sem(struct task_struct *tsk)
for (i = 0; i < sma->sem_nsems; i++) {
struct sem * semaphore = &sma->sem_base[i];
if (un->semadj[i]) {
+ spin_lock(&semaphore->lock);
semaphore->semval += un->semadj[i];
/*
* Range checks of the new semaphore value,
@@ -1423,11 +1657,15 @@ void exit_sem(struct task_struct *tsk)
if (semaphore->semval > SEMVMX)
semaphore->semval = SEMVMX;
semaphore->sempid = task_tgid_vnr(current);
+ copy_sem_queue(semaphore->semval, i,
+ &semaphore->sem_pending,
+ &pending);
+ spin_unlock(&semaphore->lock);
}
}
sma->sem_otime = get_seconds();
/* maybe some queued-up processes were waiting for this */
- update_queue(sma, -1);
+ update_queue(sma, &pending);
sem_unlock(sma);

call_rcu(&un->rcu, free_un);
--
1.7.0.3

2010-04-13 17:15:30

by Manfred Spraul

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] ipc semaphores: reduce ipc_lock contention in semtimedop

Hi Chris,


On 04/12/2010 08:49 PM, Chris Mason wrote:
> /*
> + * when a semaphore is modified, we want to retry the series of operations
> + * for anyone that was blocking on that semaphore. This breaks down into
> + * a few different common operations:
> + *
> + * 1) One modification releases one or more waiters for zero.
> + * 2) Many waiters are trying to get a single lock, only one will get it.
> + * 3) Many modifications to the count will succeed.
> + *
>
Have you thought about odd corner cases:
Nick noticed the last time that it is possible to wait for arbitrary values:
in one semop:
- decrease semaphore 5 by 10
- wait until semaphore 5 is 0
- increase semaphore 5 by 10.

> SYSCALL_DEFINE4(semtimedop, int, semid, struct sembuf __user *, tsops,
> unsigned, nsops, const struct timespec __user *, timeout)
> {
> @@ -1129,6 +1306,8 @@ SYSCALL_DEFINE4(semtimedop, int, semid, struct sembuf __user *, tsops,
> struct sem_queue queue;
> unsigned long jiffies_left = 0;
> struct ipc_namespace *ns;
> + struct sem *blocker = NULL;
> + LIST_HEAD(pending);
>
> ns = current->nsproxy->ipc_ns;
>
> @@ -1168,6 +1347,14 @@ SYSCALL_DEFINE4(semtimedop, int, semid, struct sembuf __user *, tsops,
> alter = 1;
> }
>
> + /*
> + * try_atomic_semop takes all the locks of all the semaphores in
> + * the sops array. We have to make sure we don't deadlock if userland
> + * happens to send them out of order, so we sort them by semnum.
> + */
> + if (nsops> 1)
> + sort(sops, nsops, sizeof(*sops), sembuf_compare, NULL);
> +
>
Does sorting preserve the behavior?

2010-04-13 17:41:19

by Chris Mason

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] ipc semaphores: reduce ipc_lock contention in semtimedop

On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 07:15:30PM +0200, Manfred Spraul wrote:
> Hi Chris,
>
>
> On 04/12/2010 08:49 PM, Chris Mason wrote:
> > /*
> >+ * when a semaphore is modified, we want to retry the series of operations
> >+ * for anyone that was blocking on that semaphore. This breaks down into
> >+ * a few different common operations:
> >+ *
> >+ * 1) One modification releases one or more waiters for zero.
> >+ * 2) Many waiters are trying to get a single lock, only one will get it.
> >+ * 3) Many modifications to the count will succeed.
> >+ *
> Have you thought about odd corner cases:
> Nick noticed the last time that it is possible to wait for arbitrary values:
> in one semop:
> - decrease semaphore 5 by 10
> - wait until semaphore 5 is 0
> - increase semaphore 5 by 10.

Do you mean within a single sop array doing all three of these? I don't
know if the sort is going to leave the three operations on semaphore 5
in the same order (it probably won't).

But I could change that by having it include the slot in the original
sop array in the sorting. That way if we have duplicate semnums in the
array, they will end up in the same position relative to each other in
the sorted result.

(ewwww ;)

-chris

2010-04-13 18:09:51

by Nick Piggin

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] ipc semaphores: reduce ipc_lock contention in semtimedop

On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 01:39:41PM -0400, Chris Mason wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 07:15:30PM +0200, Manfred Spraul wrote:
> > Hi Chris,
> >
> >
> > On 04/12/2010 08:49 PM, Chris Mason wrote:
> > > /*
> > >+ * when a semaphore is modified, we want to retry the series of operations
> > >+ * for anyone that was blocking on that semaphore. This breaks down into
> > >+ * a few different common operations:
> > >+ *
> > >+ * 1) One modification releases one or more waiters for zero.
> > >+ * 2) Many waiters are trying to get a single lock, only one will get it.
> > >+ * 3) Many modifications to the count will succeed.
> > >+ *
> > Have you thought about odd corner cases:
> > Nick noticed the last time that it is possible to wait for arbitrary values:
> > in one semop:
> > - decrease semaphore 5 by 10
> > - wait until semaphore 5 is 0
> > - increase semaphore 5 by 10.
>
> Do you mean within a single sop array doing all three of these? I don't
> know if the sort is going to leave the three operations on semaphore 5
> in the same order (it probably won't).
>
> But I could change that by having it include the slot in the original
> sop array in the sorting. That way if we have duplicate semnums in the
> array, they will end up in the same position relative to each other in
> the sorted result.
>
> (ewwww ;)

I had a bit of a hack at doing per-semaphore stuff when I was looking
at the first optimization, but it was tricky to make it work.

The other thing I don't know if your patch gets right is requeueing on
of the operations. When you requeue from one list to another, then you
seem to lose ordering with other pending operations, so that would
seem to break the API as well (can't remember if the API strictly
mandates FIFO, but anyway it can open up starvation cases).

I was looking at doing a sequence number to be able to sort these, but
it ended up getting over complex (and SAP was only using simple ops so
it didn't seem to need much better).

We want to be careful not to change semantics at all. And it gets
tricky quickly :( What about Zach's simpler wakeup API?

2010-04-13 18:20:38

by Chris Mason

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] ipc semaphores: reduce ipc_lock contention in semtimedop

On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 04:09:45AM +1000, Nick Piggin wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 01:39:41PM -0400, Chris Mason wrote:
> > On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 07:15:30PM +0200, Manfred Spraul wrote:
> > > Hi Chris,
> > >
> > >
> > > On 04/12/2010 08:49 PM, Chris Mason wrote:
> > > > /*
> > > >+ * when a semaphore is modified, we want to retry the series of operations
> > > >+ * for anyone that was blocking on that semaphore. This breaks down into
> > > >+ * a few different common operations:
> > > >+ *
> > > >+ * 1) One modification releases one or more waiters for zero.
> > > >+ * 2) Many waiters are trying to get a single lock, only one will get it.
> > > >+ * 3) Many modifications to the count will succeed.
> > > >+ *
> > > Have you thought about odd corner cases:
> > > Nick noticed the last time that it is possible to wait for arbitrary values:
> > > in one semop:
> > > - decrease semaphore 5 by 10
> > > - wait until semaphore 5 is 0
> > > - increase semaphore 5 by 10.
> >
> > Do you mean within a single sop array doing all three of these? I don't
> > know if the sort is going to leave the three operations on semaphore 5
> > in the same order (it probably won't).
> >
> > But I could change that by having it include the slot in the original
> > sop array in the sorting. That way if we have duplicate semnums in the
> > array, they will end up in the same position relative to each other in
> > the sorted result.
> >
> > (ewwww ;)
>
> I had a bit of a hack at doing per-semaphore stuff when I was looking
> at the first optimization, but it was tricky to make it work.
>
> The other thing I don't know if your patch gets right is requeueing on
> of the operations. When you requeue from one list to another, then you
> seem to lose ordering with other pending operations, so that would
> seem to break the API as well (can't remember if the API strictly
> mandates FIFO, but anyway it can open up starvation cases).

I don't see anything in the docs about the FIFO order. I could add an
extra sort on sequence number pretty easily, but is the starvation case
really that bad?

>
> I was looking at doing a sequence number to be able to sort these, but
> it ended up getting over complex (and SAP was only using simple ops so
> it didn't seem to need much better).
>
> We want to be careful not to change semantics at all. And it gets
> tricky quickly :( What about Zach's simpler wakeup API?

Yeah, that's why my patches include code to handle userland sending
duplicate semids. Zach's simpler API is cooking too, but if I can get
this done without insane complexity it helps with more than just the
post/wait oracle workload.

-chris

2010-04-13 18:24:41

by Zach Brown

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] ipc semaphores: reduce ipc_lock contention in semtimedop

> What about Zach's simpler wakeup API?

It's making slow progress in the background as a longer-term experiment.

http://oss.oracle.com/~zab/wake-many/

That URL still has an API description, patches, and little test
utilities for the simple first draft.

- z

2010-04-13 18:58:04

by Nick Piggin

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] ipc semaphores: reduce ipc_lock contention in semtimedop

On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 02:19:37PM -0400, Chris Mason wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 04:09:45AM +1000, Nick Piggin wrote:
> > On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 01:39:41PM -0400, Chris Mason wrote:
> > > On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 07:15:30PM +0200, Manfred Spraul wrote:
> > > > Hi Chris,
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > On 04/12/2010 08:49 PM, Chris Mason wrote:
> > > > > /*
> > > > >+ * when a semaphore is modified, we want to retry the series of operations
> > > > >+ * for anyone that was blocking on that semaphore. This breaks down into
> > > > >+ * a few different common operations:
> > > > >+ *
> > > > >+ * 1) One modification releases one or more waiters for zero.
> > > > >+ * 2) Many waiters are trying to get a single lock, only one will get it.
> > > > >+ * 3) Many modifications to the count will succeed.
> > > > >+ *
> > > > Have you thought about odd corner cases:
> > > > Nick noticed the last time that it is possible to wait for arbitrary values:
> > > > in one semop:
> > > > - decrease semaphore 5 by 10
> > > > - wait until semaphore 5 is 0
> > > > - increase semaphore 5 by 10.
> > >
> > > Do you mean within a single sop array doing all three of these? I don't
> > > know if the sort is going to leave the three operations on semaphore 5
> > > in the same order (it probably won't).
> > >
> > > But I could change that by having it include the slot in the original
> > > sop array in the sorting. That way if we have duplicate semnums in the
> > > array, they will end up in the same position relative to each other in
> > > the sorted result.
> > >
> > > (ewwww ;)
> >
> > I had a bit of a hack at doing per-semaphore stuff when I was looking
> > at the first optimization, but it was tricky to make it work.
> >
> > The other thing I don't know if your patch gets right is requeueing on
> > of the operations. When you requeue from one list to another, then you
> > seem to lose ordering with other pending operations, so that would
> > seem to break the API as well (can't remember if the API strictly
> > mandates FIFO, but anyway it can open up starvation cases).
>
> I don't see anything in the docs about the FIFO order. I could add an
> extra sort on sequence number pretty easily, but is the starvation case
> really that bad?

Yes, because it's not just a theoretical livelock, it can be basically
a certainty, given the right pattern of semops.

You could have two mostly-independent groups of processes, each taking
and releasing a different sem, which are always contended (eg. if it is
being used for a producer-consumer type situation, or even just mutual
exclusion with high contention).

Then you could have some overall management process for example which
tries to take both sems. It will never get it.


> > I was looking at doing a sequence number to be able to sort these, but
> > it ended up getting over complex (and SAP was only using simple ops so
> > it didn't seem to need much better).
> >
> > We want to be careful not to change semantics at all. And it gets
> > tricky quickly :( What about Zach's simpler wakeup API?
>
> Yeah, that's why my patches include code to handle userland sending
> duplicate semids.

Duplicate semids? What do you mean?


> Zach's simpler API is cooking too, but if I can get
> this done without insane complexity it helps with more than just the
> post/wait oracle workload.

Iam worried about complexity and slowing other cases, given that Oracle
DB seems willing to adapt to the (better suited) new API. So I'd be
interested to know what it helps outside Oracle.

2010-04-13 19:02:12

by Chris Mason

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] ipc semaphores: reduce ipc_lock contention in semtimedop

On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 04:57:56AM +1000, Nick Piggin wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 02:19:37PM -0400, Chris Mason wrote:
> > On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 04:09:45AM +1000, Nick Piggin wrote:
> > > On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 01:39:41PM -0400, Chris Mason wrote:
> > > > On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 07:15:30PM +0200, Manfred Spraul wrote:
> > > > > Hi Chris,
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > On 04/12/2010 08:49 PM, Chris Mason wrote:
> > > > > > /*
> > > > > >+ * when a semaphore is modified, we want to retry the series of operations
> > > > > >+ * for anyone that was blocking on that semaphore. This breaks down into
> > > > > >+ * a few different common operations:
> > > > > >+ *
> > > > > >+ * 1) One modification releases one or more waiters for zero.
> > > > > >+ * 2) Many waiters are trying to get a single lock, only one will get it.
> > > > > >+ * 3) Many modifications to the count will succeed.
> > > > > >+ *
> > > > > Have you thought about odd corner cases:
> > > > > Nick noticed the last time that it is possible to wait for arbitrary values:
> > > > > in one semop:
> > > > > - decrease semaphore 5 by 10
> > > > > - wait until semaphore 5 is 0
> > > > > - increase semaphore 5 by 10.
> > > >
> > > > Do you mean within a single sop array doing all three of these? I don't
> > > > know if the sort is going to leave the three operations on semaphore 5
> > > > in the same order (it probably won't).
> > > >
> > > > But I could change that by having it include the slot in the original
> > > > sop array in the sorting. That way if we have duplicate semnums in the
> > > > array, they will end up in the same position relative to each other in
> > > > the sorted result.
> > > >
> > > > (ewwww ;)
> > >
> > > I had a bit of a hack at doing per-semaphore stuff when I was looking
> > > at the first optimization, but it was tricky to make it work.
> > >
> > > The other thing I don't know if your patch gets right is requeueing on
> > > of the operations. When you requeue from one list to another, then you
> > > seem to lose ordering with other pending operations, so that would
> > > seem to break the API as well (can't remember if the API strictly
> > > mandates FIFO, but anyway it can open up starvation cases).
> >
> > I don't see anything in the docs about the FIFO order. I could add an
> > extra sort on sequence number pretty easily, but is the starvation case
> > really that bad?
>
> Yes, because it's not just a theoretical livelock, it can be basically
> a certainty, given the right pattern of semops.
>
> You could have two mostly-independent groups of processes, each taking
> and releasing a different sem, which are always contended (eg. if it is
> being used for a producer-consumer type situation, or even just mutual
> exclusion with high contention).
>
> Then you could have some overall management process for example which
> tries to take both sems. It will never get it.

Ok, fair enough, I'll add the sequence number.

>
>
> > > I was looking at doing a sequence number to be able to sort these, but
> > > it ended up getting over complex (and SAP was only using simple ops so
> > > it didn't seem to need much better).
> > >
> > > We want to be careful not to change semantics at all. And it gets
> > > tricky quickly :( What about Zach's simpler wakeup API?
> >
> > Yeah, that's why my patches include code to handle userland sending
> > duplicate semids.
>
> Duplicate semids? What do you mean?

Sorry, semnums...index into the array of semaphores.

>
>
> > Zach's simpler API is cooking too, but if I can get
> > this done without insane complexity it helps with more than just the
> > post/wait oracle workload.
>
> Iam worried about complexity and slowing other cases, given that Oracle
> DB seems willing to adapt to the (better suited) new API. So I'd be
> interested to know what it helps outside Oracle.
>

Sure, I'd hope that your benchmark from last time around is faster now.

-chris

2010-04-13 19:25:57

by Nick Piggin

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] ipc semaphores: reduce ipc_lock contention in semtimedop

On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 03:01:10PM -0400, Chris Mason wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 04:57:56AM +1000, Nick Piggin wrote:
> > Yes, because it's not just a theoretical livelock, it can be basically
> > a certainty, given the right pattern of semops.
> >
> > You could have two mostly-independent groups of processes, each taking
> > and releasing a different sem, which are always contended (eg. if it is
> > being used for a producer-consumer type situation, or even just mutual
> > exclusion with high contention).
> >
> > Then you could have some overall management process for example which
> > tries to take both sems. It will never get it.
>
> Ok, fair enough, I'll add the sequence number.
>
> >
> >
> > > > I was looking at doing a sequence number to be able to sort these, but
> > > > it ended up getting over complex (and SAP was only using simple ops so
> > > > it didn't seem to need much better).
> > > >
> > > > We want to be careful not to change semantics at all. And it gets
> > > > tricky quickly :( What about Zach's simpler wakeup API?
> > >
> > > Yeah, that's why my patches include code to handle userland sending
> > > duplicate semids.
> >
> > Duplicate semids? What do you mean?
>
> Sorry, semnums...index into the array of semaphores.

OK, I wonder just how much it helps, and what.


> > > Zach's simpler API is cooking too, but if I can get
> > > this done without insane complexity it helps with more than just the
> > > post/wait oracle workload.
> >
> > Iam worried about complexity and slowing other cases, given that Oracle
> > DB seems willing to adapt to the (better suited) new API. So I'd be
> > interested to know what it helps outside Oracle.
> >
>
> Sure, I'd hope that your benchmark from last time around is faster now.

I didn't actually reproduce it here, I think it was a customer or
partner workload. But SAP only seemed to have one contended semnum in
its array, and it was being operated on with "simple" semops (so that's
about as far as the patches went).

I didn't notice anything that should make that go faster?

Yes, with such a workload, using semops is basically legacy and simple
mutexes should work better. So I'm not outright against improving sysv
sem performance for more complex cases where nothing else we have works
as well.

2010-04-13 19:38:50

by Chris Mason

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] ipc semaphores: reduce ipc_lock contention in semtimedop

On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 05:25:51AM +1000, Nick Piggin wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 03:01:10PM -0400, Chris Mason wrote:
> > On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 04:57:56AM +1000, Nick Piggin wrote:
> > > Yes, because it's not just a theoretical livelock, it can be basically
> > > a certainty, given the right pattern of semops.
> > >
> > > You could have two mostly-independent groups of processes, each taking
> > > and releasing a different sem, which are always contended (eg. if it is
> > > being used for a producer-consumer type situation, or even just mutual
> > > exclusion with high contention).
> > >
> > > Then you could have some overall management process for example which
> > > tries to take both sems. It will never get it.
> >
> > Ok, fair enough, I'll add the sequence number.
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > > > I was looking at doing a sequence number to be able to sort these, but
> > > > > it ended up getting over complex (and SAP was only using simple ops so
> > > > > it didn't seem to need much better).
> > > > >
> > > > > We want to be careful not to change semantics at all. And it gets
> > > > > tricky quickly :( What about Zach's simpler wakeup API?
> > > >
> > > > Yeah, that's why my patches include code to handle userland sending
> > > > duplicate semids.
> > >
> > > Duplicate semids? What do you mean?
> >
> > Sorry, semnums...index into the array of semaphores.
>
> OK, I wonder just how much it helps, and what.

Detecting the dups just keeps me from deadlocking. I'm locking each
individual semaphore in sequence, so if userland does something strange
and sends two updates to the same semaphore, the code detects that and
only locks the first one.

>
>
> > > > Zach's simpler API is cooking too, but if I can get
> > > > this done without insane complexity it helps with more than just the
> > > > post/wait oracle workload.
> > >
> > > Iam worried about complexity and slowing other cases, given that Oracle
> > > DB seems willing to adapt to the (better suited) new API. So I'd be
> > > interested to know what it helps outside Oracle.
> > >
> >
> > Sure, I'd hope that your benchmark from last time around is faster now.
>
> I didn't actually reproduce it here, I think it was a customer or
> partner workload. But SAP only seemed to have one contended semnum in
> its array, and it was being operated on with "simple" semops (so that's
> about as far as the patches went).
>
> I didn't notice anything that should make that go faster?

Since I'm avoiding the ipc lock while operating on the array, it'll help
any workload that hits on two or more semaphores in the array at
once.

>
> Yes, with such a workload, using semops is basically legacy and simple
> mutexes should work better. So I'm not outright against improving sysv
> sem performance for more complex cases where nothing else we have works
> as well.
>

I'm not in a hurry to overhaul a part of the kernel that has been stable
for a long time. But it really needs some love I think. I'll have more
numbers from a tpc run later this week.

-chris

2010-04-13 20:05:32

by Nick Piggin

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] ipc semaphores: reduce ipc_lock contention in semtimedop

On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 03:38:01PM -0400, Chris Mason wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 05:25:51AM +1000, Nick Piggin wrote:
> > I didn't notice anything that should make that go faster?
>
> Since I'm avoiding the ipc lock while operating on the array, it'll help
> any workload that hits on two or more semaphores in the array at
> once.

Yeah, I don't think SAP did that, significantly to matter. Possibly
some (aside from Oracle of course), do though.


> > Yes, with such a workload, using semops is basically legacy and simple
> > mutexes should work better. So I'm not outright against improving sysv
> > sem performance for more complex cases where nothing else we have works
> > as well.
> >
>
> I'm not in a hurry to overhaul a part of the kernel that has been stable
> for a long time. But it really needs some love I think. I'll have more
> numbers from a tpc run later this week.

Yep, I'm not against it. "industry standard benchmark" numbers would
be great.

I do think we need to be really careful with semantics though. The
API's been around for long enough that it is going to have been
(ab)used in every way possible :)

2010-04-14 16:16:51

by Manfred Spraul

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] ipc semaphores: reduce ipc_lock contention in semtimedop

On 04/13/2010 08:19 PM, Chris Mason wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 04:09:45AM +1000, Nick Piggin wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 01:39:41PM -0400, Chris Mason wrote:
>>
>> The other thing I don't know if your patch gets right is requeueing on
>> of the operations. When you requeue from one list to another, then you
>> seem to lose ordering with other pending operations, so that would
>> seem to break the API as well (can't remember if the API strictly
>> mandates FIFO, but anyway it can open up starvation cases).
>>
> I don't see anything in the docs about the FIFO order. I could add an
> extra sort on sequence number pretty easily, but is the starvation case
> really that bad?
>
>
How do you want to determine the sequence number?
Is atomic_inc_return() on a per-semaphore array counter sufficiently fast?

>> I was looking at doing a sequence number to be able to sort these, but
>> it ended up getting over complex (and SAP was only using simple ops so
>> it didn't seem to need much better).
>>
>> We want to be careful not to change semantics at all. And it gets
>> tricky quickly :( What about Zach's simpler wakeup API?
>>
> Yeah, that's why my patches include code to handle userland sending
> duplicate semids. Zach's simpler API is cooking too, but if I can get
> this done without insane complexity it helps with more than just the
> post/wait oracle workload.
>
>
What is the oracle workload, which multi-sembuf operations does it use?
How many semaphores are in one array?

When the last optimizations were written, I've searched a bit:
- postgres uses per-process semaphores, with small semaphore arrays.
[process sleeps on it's own semaphore and is woken up by someone
else when it can make progress]
- with google, I couldn't find anything relevant that uses multi-sembuf
semop() calls.

And I agree with Nick: We should be careful about changing the API.

--
Manfred

2010-04-14 17:33:49

by Chris Mason

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] ipc semaphores: reduce ipc_lock contention in semtimedop

On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 06:16:53PM +0200, Manfred Spraul wrote:
> On 04/13/2010 08:19 PM, Chris Mason wrote:
> >On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 04:09:45AM +1000, Nick Piggin wrote:
> >>On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 01:39:41PM -0400, Chris Mason wrote:
> >>The other thing I don't know if your patch gets right is requeueing on
> >>of the operations. When you requeue from one list to another, then you
> >>seem to lose ordering with other pending operations, so that would
> >>seem to break the API as well (can't remember if the API strictly
> >>mandates FIFO, but anyway it can open up starvation cases).
> >I don't see anything in the docs about the FIFO order. I could add an
> >extra sort on sequence number pretty easily, but is the starvation case
> >really that bad?
> >
> How do you want to determine the sequence number?
> Is atomic_inc_return() on a per-semaphore array counter sufficiently fast?

I haven't tried yet, but hopefully it won't be a problem. A later patch
does atomics on the reference count and it doesn't show up in the
profiles.

>
> >>I was looking at doing a sequence number to be able to sort these, but
> >>it ended up getting over complex (and SAP was only using simple ops so
> >>it didn't seem to need much better).
> >>
> >>We want to be careful not to change semantics at all. And it gets
> >>tricky quickly :( What about Zach's simpler wakeup API?
> >Yeah, that's why my patches include code to handle userland sending
> >duplicate semids. Zach's simpler API is cooking too, but if I can get
> >this done without insane complexity it helps with more than just the
> >post/wait oracle workload.
> >
> What is the oracle workload, which multi-sembuf operations does it use?
> How many semaphores are in one array?
>
> When the last optimizations were written, I've searched a bit:
> - postgres uses per-process semaphores, with small semaphore arrays.
> [process sleeps on it's own semaphore and is woken up by someone
> else when it can make progress]

This is similar to Oracle (and the sembench program). Each process has
a semaphore and when it is waiting for a commit it goes to sleep on it.
They are woken up in bulk with semtimedop calls from a single process.

But oracle also uses semaphores for locking in a traditional sense.

Putting the waiters into a per-semaphore list is really only part of the
speedup. The real boost comes from the patch to break up the locks into
a per semaphore lock.

We gain another 10-15% from a later patch that gets uses atomics on the
refcount, which lets us do sem_putref without a lock (meaning we're
lockless once we get woken up).

I'm cleaning up fixes based on suggestions here and will repost.

> - with google, I couldn't find anything relevant that uses
> multi-sembuf semop() calls.
>

I think this should help any workload that has more than one semaphore
per array, even if they only do one sem per call.

> And I agree with Nick: We should be careful about changing the API.

Definitely, thanks for reading through it.

-chris

2010-04-14 19:11:42

by Manfred Spraul

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] ipc semaphores: reduce ipc_lock contention in semtimedop

On 04/14/2010 07:33 PM, Chris Mason wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 06:16:53PM +0200, Manfred Spraul wrote:
>
>> On 04/13/2010 08:19 PM, Chris Mason wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 04:09:45AM +1000, Nick Piggin wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 01:39:41PM -0400, Chris Mason wrote:
>>>> The other thing I don't know if your patch gets right is requeueing on
>>>> of the operations. When you requeue from one list to another, then you
>>>> seem to lose ordering with other pending operations, so that would
>>>> seem to break the API as well (can't remember if the API strictly
>>>> mandates FIFO, but anyway it can open up starvation cases).
>>>>
>>> I don't see anything in the docs about the FIFO order. I could add an
>>> extra sort on sequence number pretty easily, but is the starvation case
>>> really that bad?
>>>
>>>
>> How do you want to determine the sequence number?
>> Is atomic_inc_return() on a per-semaphore array counter sufficiently fast?
>>
> I haven't tried yet, but hopefully it won't be a problem. A later patch
> does atomics on the reference count and it doesn't show up in the
> profiles.
>
>
>>
>>>> I was looking at doing a sequence number to be able to sort these, but
>>>> it ended up getting over complex (and SAP was only using simple ops so
>>>> it didn't seem to need much better).
>>>>
>>>> We want to be careful not to change semantics at all. And it gets
>>>> tricky quickly :( What about Zach's simpler wakeup API?
>>>>
>>> Yeah, that's why my patches include code to handle userland sending
>>> duplicate semids. Zach's simpler API is cooking too, but if I can get
>>> this done without insane complexity it helps with more than just the
>>> post/wait oracle workload.
>>>
>>>
>> What is the oracle workload, which multi-sembuf operations does it use?
>> How many semaphores are in one array?
>>
>> When the last optimizations were written, I've searched a bit:
>> - postgres uses per-process semaphores, with small semaphore arrays.
>> [process sleeps on it's own semaphore and is woken up by someone
>> else when it can make progress]
>>
> This is similar to Oracle (and the sembench program). Each process has
> a semaphore and when it is waiting for a commit it goes to sleep on it.
> They are woken up in bulk with semtimedop calls from a single process.
>
>
Hmm. Thus you have:
- single sembuf decrease operations that are waiting frequently.
- multi-sembuf increase operations.

What about optimizing for that case?
Increase operations succeed immediately. Thus complex_count is 0.

If we have performed an update operation, then we can scan all
simple_lists that have seen an increase instead of checking the global
list - as long as there are no complex operations waiting.
Right now, we give up if the update operation was a complex operation -
but that does not matter.
All that matters are the sleeping operations, not the operation that did
the wakeup.
I've attached an untested idea.

> But oracle also uses semaphores for locking in a traditional sense.
>
> Putting the waiters into a per-semaphore list is really only part of the
> speedup. The real boost comes from the patch to break up the locks into
> a per semaphore lock.
>
>
Ok. Then simple tricks won't help.
How many semaphores are in one array?

--
Manfred


Attachments:
patch-ipc-optimize_bulkwakeup (646.00 B)

2010-04-14 19:51:33

by Chris Mason

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] ipc semaphores: reduce ipc_lock contention in semtimedop

On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 09:11:44PM +0200, Manfred Spraul wrote:
> On 04/14/2010 07:33 PM, Chris Mason wrote:
> >On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 06:16:53PM +0200, Manfred Spraul wrote:
> >>On 04/13/2010 08:19 PM, Chris Mason wrote:
> >>>On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 04:09:45AM +1000, Nick Piggin wrote:
> >>>>On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 01:39:41PM -0400, Chris Mason wrote:
> >>>>The other thing I don't know if your patch gets right is requeueing on
> >>>>of the operations. When you requeue from one list to another, then you
> >>>>seem to lose ordering with other pending operations, so that would
> >>>>seem to break the API as well (can't remember if the API strictly
> >>>>mandates FIFO, but anyway it can open up starvation cases).
> >>>I don't see anything in the docs about the FIFO order. I could add an
> >>>extra sort on sequence number pretty easily, but is the starvation case
> >>>really that bad?
> >>>
> >>How do you want to determine the sequence number?
> >>Is atomic_inc_return() on a per-semaphore array counter sufficiently fast?
> >I haven't tried yet, but hopefully it won't be a problem. A later patch
> >does atomics on the reference count and it doesn't show up in the
> >profiles.
> >
> >>>>I was looking at doing a sequence number to be able to sort these, but
> >>>>it ended up getting over complex (and SAP was only using simple ops so
> >>>>it didn't seem to need much better).
> >>>>
> >>>>We want to be careful not to change semantics at all. And it gets
> >>>>tricky quickly :( What about Zach's simpler wakeup API?
> >>>Yeah, that's why my patches include code to handle userland sending
> >>>duplicate semids. Zach's simpler API is cooking too, but if I can get
> >>>this done without insane complexity it helps with more than just the
> >>>post/wait oracle workload.
> >>>
> >>What is the oracle workload, which multi-sembuf operations does it use?
> >>How many semaphores are in one array?
> >>
> >>When the last optimizations were written, I've searched a bit:
> >>- postgres uses per-process semaphores, with small semaphore arrays.
> >> [process sleeps on it's own semaphore and is woken up by someone
> >>else when it can make progress]
> >This is similar to Oracle (and the sembench program). Each process has
> >a semaphore and when it is waiting for a commit it goes to sleep on it.
> >They are woken up in bulk with semtimedop calls from a single process.
> >
> Hmm. Thus you have:
> - single sembuf decrease operations that are waiting frequently.
> - multi-sembuf increase operations.
>
> What about optimizing for that case?
> Increase operations succeed immediately. Thus complex_count is 0.

I've been wondering about that. I can optimize the patch to special
case the increase operations. The only problem I saw was checking or
the range overflow. Current behavior will abort the whole set if the
range overflow happens.

>
> If we have performed an update operation, then we can scan all
> simple_lists that have seen an increase instead of checking the
> global list - as long as there are no complex operations waiting.
> Right now, we give up if the update operation was a complex
> operation - but that does not matter.
> All that matters are the sleeping operations, not the operation that
> did the wakeup.
> I've attached an untested idea.

Zach Brown's original patch set tried just the list magic and not
the spinlocks. I'm afraid it didn't help very much over all.

>
> >But oracle also uses semaphores for locking in a traditional sense.
> >
> >Putting the waiters into a per-semaphore list is really only part of the
> >speedup. The real boost comes from the patch to break up the locks into
> >a per semaphore lock.
> >
> Ok. Then simple tricks won't help.
> How many semaphores are in one array?

On a big system I saw about 4000 semaphores total. The database will
just allocate as many as it can into a single array and keep creating
arrays until it has all it needs.

-chris

2010-04-15 16:33:09

by Manfred Spraul

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] ipc semaphores: reduce ipc_lock contention in semtimedop

On 04/14/2010 09:50 PM, Chris Mason wrote:
> On a big system I saw about 4000 semaphores total. The database will
> just allocate as many as it can into a single array and keep creating
> arrays until it has all it needs.
>
>
What happens if SEMMSL is reduced (first entry in /proc/sys/kernel/sem)?

--
Manfred

2010-04-15 16:36:15

by Chris Mason

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] ipc semaphores: reduce ipc_lock contention in semtimedop

On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 06:33:13PM +0200, Manfred Spraul wrote:
> On 04/14/2010 09:50 PM, Chris Mason wrote:
> >On a big system I saw about 4000 semaphores total. The database will
> >just allocate as many as it can into a single array and keep creating
> >arrays until it has all it needs.
> >
> What happens if SEMMSL is reduced (first entry in /proc/sys/kernel/sem)?

Performance improves slightly but the ipc lock is still at the top of the
profile ;)

-chris

2010-04-16 11:26:11

by Manfred Spraul

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] ipc semaphores: reduce ipc_lock contention in semtimedop

On 04/12/2010 08:49 PM, Chris Mason wrote:
> I have a microbenchmark to test how quickly we can post and wait in
> bulk. With this change, semtimedop is able do to more than twice
> as much work in the same run. On a large numa machine, it brings
> the IPC lock system time (reported by perf) down from 85% to 15%.
>
>
Looking at the current code:
- update_queue() can be O(N^2) if only some of the waiting tasks are
woken up.
Actually: all non-woken up tasks are rescanned after a task that can be
woken up is found.

- Your test app tests the best case for the current code:
You wake up the tasks in the same order as the called semop().
If you invert the order (i.e.: worklist_add() adds to head instead of
tail), I would expect an even worse performance of the current code.

The O(N^2) is simple to fix, I've attached a patch.
For your micro-benchmark, the patch does not change much: you wake-up
in-order, thus the current code does not misbehave.

Do you know how Oracle wakes up the tasks?
FIFO, LIFO, un-ordered?

> while(unlikely(error == IN_WAKEUP)) {
> cpu_relax();
> error = queue.status;
> }
>
> - if (error != -EINTR) {
> + /*
> + * we are lock free right here, and we could have timed out or
> + * gotten a signal, so we need to be really careful with how we
> + * play with queue.status. It has three possible states:
> + *
> + * -EINTR, which means nobody has changed it since we slept. This
> + * means we woke up on our own.
> + *
> + * IN_WAKEUP, someone is currently waking us up. We need to loop
> + * here until they change it to the operation error value. If
> + * we don't loop, our process could exit before they are done waking us
> + *
> + * operation error value: we've been properly woken up and can exit
> + * at any time.
> + *
> + * If queue.status is currently -EINTR, we are still being processed
> + * by the semtimedop core. Someone either has us on a list head
> + * or is currently poking our queue struct. We need to find that
> + * reference and remove it, which is what remove_queue_from_lists
> + * does.
> + *
> + * We always check for both -EINTR and IN_WAKEUP because we have no
> + * locks held. Someone could change us from -EINTR to IN_WAKEUP at
> + * any time.
> + */
> + if (error != -EINTR&& error != IN_WAKEUP) {
> /* fast path: update_queue already obtained all requested
> * resources */
No: The code accesses a local variable. The loop above the comment
guarantees that the error can't be IN_WAKEUP.

> +
> +out_putref:
> + sem_putref(sma);
> + goto out_free;
>
Is it possible to move the sem_putref into wakeup_sem_queue()?
Right now, the exit path of semtimedop doesn't touch the spinlock.
You remove that optimization.

--
Manfred


Attachments:
patch-ipc-optimize_bulkwakeup (4.30 kB)

2010-04-16 11:45:46

by Chris Mason

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] ipc semaphores: reduce ipc_lock contention in semtimedop

On Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 01:26:15PM +0200, Manfred Spraul wrote:
> On 04/12/2010 08:49 PM, Chris Mason wrote:
> >I have a microbenchmark to test how quickly we can post and wait in
> >bulk. With this change, semtimedop is able do to more than twice
> >as much work in the same run. On a large numa machine, it brings
> >the IPC lock system time (reported by perf) down from 85% to 15%.
> >
> Looking at the current code:
> - update_queue() can be O(N^2) if only some of the waiting tasks are
> woken up.
> Actually: all non-woken up tasks are rescanned after a task that can
> be woken up is found.
>
> - Your test app tests the best case for the current code:
> You wake up the tasks in the same order as the called semop().
> If you invert the order (i.e.: worklist_add() adds to head instead
> of tail), I would expect an even worse performance of the current
> code.
>
> The O(N^2) is simple to fix, I've attached a patch.

Good point.

> For your micro-benchmark, the patch does not change much: you
> wake-up in-order, thus the current code does not misbehave.
>
> Do you know how Oracle wakes up the tasks?
> FIFO, LIFO, un-ordered?

Ordering in terms of the sem array? I had them try many variations ;) I
don't think it will be ordered as well as sembench most of the time.

>
> > while(unlikely(error == IN_WAKEUP)) {
> > cpu_relax();
> > error = queue.status;
> > }
> >
> >- if (error != -EINTR) {
> >+ /*
> >+ * we are lock free right here, and we could have timed out or
> >+ * gotten a signal, so we need to be really careful with how we
> >+ * play with queue.status. It has three possible states:
> >+ *
> >+ * -EINTR, which means nobody has changed it since we slept. This
> >+ * means we woke up on our own.
> >+ *
> >+ * IN_WAKEUP, someone is currently waking us up. We need to loop
> >+ * here until they change it to the operation error value. If
> >+ * we don't loop, our process could exit before they are done waking us
> >+ *
> >+ * operation error value: we've been properly woken up and can exit
> >+ * at any time.
> >+ *
> >+ * If queue.status is currently -EINTR, we are still being processed
> >+ * by the semtimedop core. Someone either has us on a list head
> >+ * or is currently poking our queue struct. We need to find that
> >+ * reference and remove it, which is what remove_queue_from_lists
> >+ * does.
> >+ *
> >+ * We always check for both -EINTR and IN_WAKEUP because we have no
> >+ * locks held. Someone could change us from -EINTR to IN_WAKEUP at
> >+ * any time.
> >+ */
> >+ if (error != -EINTR&& error != IN_WAKEUP) {
> > /* fast path: update_queue already obtained all requested
> > * resources */
> No: The code accesses a local variable. The loop above the comment
> guarantees that the error can't be IN_WAKEUP.

Whoops, thanks.

>
> >+
> >+out_putref:
> >+ sem_putref(sma);
> >+ goto out_free;
> Is it possible to move the sem_putref into wakeup_sem_queue()?
> Right now, the exit path of semtimedop doesn't touch the spinlock.
> You remove that optimization.

I'll look at this, we need to be able to go through the sma to remove
the process from the lists if it woke up on its own, but I don't see why
we can't putref in wakeup.

My current revision of the patch uses an atomic instead of the lock, so it
restores the lockless wakeup either way. Still it is better to putref in
wakeup.

-chris

2010-04-17 10:24:42

by Manfred Spraul

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/2] ipc semaphores: order wakeups based on waiter CPU

Hi Chris,

On 04/12/2010 08:49 PM, Chris Mason wrote:
> @@ -599,6 +622,13 @@ again:
> list_splice_init(&new_pending,&work_list);
> goto again;
> }
> +
> + list_sort(NULL,&wake_list, list_comp);
> + while (!list_empty(&wake_list)) {
> + q = list_entry(wake_list.next, struct sem_queue, list);
> + list_del_init(&q->list);
> + wake_up_sem_queue(q, 0);
> + }
> }
>
What about moving this step much later?

There is no need to hold any locks for the actual wake_up_process().

I've updated my patch:
- improved update_queue that guarantees no O(N^2) for your workload.
- move the actual wake-up after dropping all locks
- optimize setting sem_otime
- cacheline align the ipc spinlock.

But the odd thing:
It doesn't improve the sembench result at all (AMD Phenom X4)
The only thing that is reduced is the system time:
From ~1 min system time for "sembench -t 250 -w 250 -r 30 -o 0" to ~30 sec.

cpu binding the sembench threads results in an improvement of ~50% - at
the cost of a significant increase of the system time (from 30 seconds
to 1 min) and the user time (from 2 seconds to 14 seconds).

Are you sure that the problem is contention on the semaphore array spinlock?
With the above changes, the code that is under the spin_lock is very short.
Especially:
- Why does optimizing ipc/sem.c only reduce the system time [reported by
time] and not the sembench output?
- Why is there no improvement from the ___cache_line_align?
If there would be contention, then there should be trashing from
accessing the lock and writing sem_otime and reading sem_base.
- Additionally: you wrote that reducing the array size does not help much.
But: The arrays are 100% independant, the ipc code scales linearly.
Spreading the work over multiple spinlocks is - like cache line aligning
- usually a 100% guaranteed improvement if there is contention.

I've attached a modified sembench.c and the proposal for ipc/sem.c
Could you try it?
What do you think?
How many cores do you have in your test system?

--
Manfred


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