Re: [prepatch] 2.4 waitqueues

From: Andrew Morton (andrewm@uow.edu.au)
Date: Tue Dec 26 2000 - 21:57:12 EST


Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
>
> On Wed, Dec 27, 2000 at 11:29:06AM +1100, Andrew Morton wrote:
> > - Got rid of all the debugging ifdefs - these have been folded into
> > wait.h
>
> Why? Such debugging code is just disabled so it doesn't get compiled in, but if
> somebody wants he can enable it changing the #define in the sources to catch
> missing initialization of the waitqueue. I disagree in removing it.

Oh, it's all still there, but it's now all in the header file:

#ifdef DEBUG
#define foo() printk(stuff)
#else
#define foo()
#endif

> > - Removed all the USE_RW_WAIT_QUEUE_SPINLOCK code and just used
> > spinlocks.
> >
> > The read_lock option was pretty questionable anyway. It hasn't had
> > the widespread testing and, umm, the kernel is using wq_write_lock
> > *everywhere* anyway, so enabling USE_RW_WAIT_QUEUE_SPINLOCK wouldn't
> > change anything, except for using a more expensive spinlock!
> >
> > So it's gone.
>
> It's true that wake_up_process doesn't scale, but O(N) scans of the waitqueue
> could be imposed by the smp-irq-wakeup logic if there's no CPU affine task
> registered, so it makes sense at least in theory. Of course right now it can
> only hurt because as you say wake_up is using the write_lock too. But I'd
> prefer not to drop it since it become safe (no wake-one missed event) once we
> fix all the wake-one races checking the wake_up_process retval, so I'd suggest
> to use the wq_read_lock in browse of the waitqueue instead of removing
> wq_*_lock.

OK.

> > - Introduces a kernel-wide macro `SMP_KERNEL'. This is designed to
> > be used as a `compiled ifdef' in place of `#ifdef CONFIG_SMP'. There
> > are a few examples in __wake_up_common().
> >
> > People shouldn't go wild with this, because gcc's dead code
> > elimination isn't perfect. But it's nice for little things.
>
> I think the main issue is that SMP_KERNEL isn't complete and I'm not sure if it
> really helps readability to increase the ways to write smp-compile-time code.
> For example in your example you probably get complains about unitialized
> variables in the UP compile, then I think it's nicer not to rely on gcc for the
> reasons you said. The fact the thing is little is not much relevant if gcc gets
> it wrong (however I believe gcc will get it right) because the little thing
> could be in a fast path like in the example usage in wake_up().

No, gcc doesn't give any warnings about uninitialised vars. It _could_
give warnings about unused ones, but doesn't.

> > - This patch's _use_ of SMP_KERNEL in __wake_up_common is fairly
> > significant. There was quite a lot of code in that function which
> > was an unnecessary burden for UP systems. All gone now.
>
> The same could be achived with the usual #ifdef CONFIG_SMP of course ;).
>
> > - I have finally had enough of printk() deadlocking or going
> > infinitely mutually recursive on me so printk()'s wake_up(log_wait)
> > call has been moved into a tq_timer callback.
>
> That's only overhead for mainstream kernel. Nobody is allowed to call printk
> from wake_up(). For debugging wake_up() the above hack is fine of course (but
> that is stuff for a debugging tree not for the mainstream one). Or at least
> it should be put inside an #ifdef DEBUG or something like that.

It's not just open-coded printks - it's oopses. If you take an oops or a
BUG or a panic within wake_up() or _anywhere_ with the runqueue_lock held,
the machine deadlocks and you don't get any diagnostics. This is bad.

We really do need to get that wake_up() out of printk(). tq_timer may
not be the best way. Suggestions welcome.

> > - SLEEP_ON_VAR, SLEEP_ON_HEAD and SLEEP_ON_TAIL have been changed. I
> > see no valid reason why these functions were, effectively, doing
> > this:
> >
> > spin_lock_irqsave(lock, flags);
> > spin_unlock(lock);
> > schedule();
> > spin_lock(lock);
> > spin_unlock_irqrestore(lock, flags);
> >
> > What's the point in saving the interrupt status in `flags'? If the
>
> Because old drivers could be doing ugly stuff like this:
>
> cli()
> for (;;) {
> if (!resource_available)
> sleep_on(&wait_for_resource)
> else
> break
> }
> ...
> sti()
>
> If you don't save and restore flags the second sleep_on could be entered with
> irq enabled and the wakeup from irq could happen before registering in the
> waitqueue causing a lost wakeup.
>
> Maybe none driver is doing the above, but I think there's no point to
> microoptimize sleep_on by breaking horrible [but currently safe] usages like
> the above one at runtime, because if the driver cares about performance it
> wasn't using sleep_on since the first place ;). The right way to optimize the
> code is to remove sleep_on_*, that wouldn't risk to break stuff silenty at
> runtime. I believe it's a 2.5.x item (I really don't recommend to drop sleep_on
> right now for 2.4.x).

OK, I'll put it back. Thanks.
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