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From: Benjamin Segall <bsegall@google.com>
To: Hillf Danton <hdanton@sina.com>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>,  Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>,
  Will Deacon <will@kernel.org>,  Waiman Long <longman@redhat.com>,  Boqun
 Feng <boqun.feng@gmail.com>,  linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH] locking/percpu-rwsem: do not do lock handoff in
 percpu_up_write
In-Reply-To: <20240126122230.838-1-hdanton@sina.com> (Hillf Danton's message
	of "Fri, 26 Jan 2024 20:22:30 +0800")
References: <xm26zfwx7z5p.fsf@google.com>
	<20240123150541.1508-1-hdanton@sina.com>
	<20240125110456.783-1-hdanton@sina.com>
	<20240126122230.838-1-hdanton@sina.com>
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2024 12:40:43 -0800
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Hillf Danton <hdanton@sina.com> writes:

> On Thu, 25 Jan 2024 13:08:02 -0800 Benjamin Segall <bsegall@google.com>
>> Hillf Danton <hdanton@sina.com> writes:
>> > On Wed, 24 Jan 2024 14:10:43 -0800 Benjamin Segall <bsegall@google.com>
>> >> Hillf Danton <hdanton@sina.com> writes:
>> >> > On Mon, 22 Jan 2024 14:59:14 -0800 Benjamin Segall <bsegall@google.com>
>> >> >> So the actual problem we saw was that one job had severe slowdowns
>> >> >> during startup with certain other jobs on the machine, and the slowdowns
>> >> >> turned out to be some cgroup moves it did during startup. The antagonist
>> >> >> jobs were spawning huge numbers of threads and some other internal bugs
>> >> >> were exacerbating their contention. The lock handoff meant that a batch
>> >> >> of antagonist threads would receive the read lock of
>> >> >> cgroup_threadgroup_rwsem and at least some of those threads would take a
>> >> >> long time to be scheduled.
>> >> >
>> >> > If you want to avoid starved lock waiter, take a look at RWSEM_FLAG_HANDOFF
>> >> > in rwsem_down_read_slowpath().
>> >> 
>> >> rwsem's HANDOFF flag is the exact opposite of what this patch is doing.
>> >
>> > You and I are not on the same page.
>> >
>> >> Percpu-rwsem's current code has perfect handoff for read->write, and a very
>> >> short window for write->read (or write->write) to be beaten by a new writer.
>> >
>> > Given no chance left for spin on owner who is legal to take a ten-minute nap,
>> > the right thing known to do on behalf of starved waiters is to add the HANDOFF
>> > mechanism without any heuristic like you proposed for instance, in order to
>> > force lock acquirers to go the slow path.
>> >
>> > Only for thoughts.
>> 
>> This is not the type of slowdown that is the problem my patch is trying
>> to address. (And due to the way percpu-rwsem works sem->ww is nearly
>> entirely redundant with sem->block - the first waiting writer is instead
>> waiting on rcuwait and holds sem->block while doing so)
>> 
>> The problem that my patch addresses is:
>> 
>> Writer is done: percpu_up_write
>>   atomic_set_release(&sem->block, 0);  // #1
>>   wake a batch of readers:
>>     percpu_rwsem_wake_function -> __percpu_rwsem_trylock(reader) // #2
>>   wake a single writer
>>     percpu_rwsem_wake_function -> __percpu_rwsem_trylock(writer) // #3
>> new writer wakes up (holding sem->block from #3)
>>   sees the readers holding the lock from #2, now sleeps on rcuwait
>> time passes // #4
>> readers finally get to run, run quickly and release the lock
>> now the writer gets to run
>> 
>> Currently the only source of unfairness/optimistic locking is the window
>> between #1 and #2, which occur in quick succession, on the same thread,
>> and with no SPIN_ON_OWNER to make this window more likely than it
>> otherwise would be.
>
> The sem->ww introduced closes the window between #1 and #2 by define
> as it is derived from rwsem's HANDOFF.

Yes.

>> 
>> My patch makes the entire #4 available to writers (or new readers), so
>> that the woken writer will instead get to run immediately. This is
>
> Victims rise in case the woken readers at #2 have been waiting more
> than a minute while the woken writer less than 20ms.
>
>> obviously much less fair, but provides much better throughput (ideally
>> it might have some sort of delay, so that in more normal circumstances
>> readers don't have to win the wakeup race by luck and being woken
>> slightly sooner, but I don't have that).
>> 
>> This is also only useful because of the assumption that readers will
>> almost always not actually block (among other required assumptions) - if
>
> Like heuristic, any assumption makes the locking game more complex than
> thought without real win.
>

I'm fine with "no, fairness is more important than these performance
numbers or mitigating already-sorta-broken situations", but it's not
clear to me you've even understood the patch, because you keep only
talking about completely different forms of starvation, and suggesting
changes that would if anything make the situation worse.