Re: semaphore and mutex in current Linux kernel (3.2.2)

[Paul E. McKenney]

On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 02:15:25PM +0000, Chen, Dennis (SRDC SW) wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 11:18 PM, Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 09:42:36AM +0000, Chen, Dennis (SRDC SW) wrote:
> >> I think mutex_lock is not the same as spin_lock, so it's not reasonable to add the time restriction
> >> for the lock user...though maybe most owners of the lock release it very quickly in real life
> >
> > Yep -- to do otherwise is usually bad for both performance and scalability.
> >
> >> The preemptive has been disabled at the beginning of the mutex lock slow path, so I guess above 2 and 3
> >> are impossible...
> >
> > Almost.  The guy in mutex_spin_on_owner() might be interrupted at just
> > the wrong times, which would have the same effect as being preempted.
> > But in both cases, the probability is really low, so it can still be
> > safely ignored.
> >
> >> I have a test to get the jiffies lasting when someone call set_need_resched() to break the loop:
> >>     ...
> >>     i0 = jiffies;
> >>     rcu_read_lock();
> >>     while(1){
> >>         if (need_resched())
> >>             break;
> >>         cpu_relax();
> >>     }
> >>     rcu_read_unlock();
> >>     i1 = jiffies;
> >>     printk("i0 = %ld, i1 = %ld, HZ=%d\n", i0, i1, HZ);
> >>     ...
> >> The result is, in the case of HZ=1000, i1-i0 will be in [1,...,5] range randomly. So if we exit the while loop
> >> on need_resched(), that means the optimization of mutex comparing semaphore doesn't success: mutex spins about
> >> several jiffies before goto sleep or get the lock finally,right?
> >
> > But this is quite different than mutex_spin_on_owner().  You are doing
> > "while(1)" and mutex_spin_on_owner() is doing "while (owner_running(...))".
> > This means that mutex_spin_on_owner() will typically stop spinning as
> > soon as the owner blocks or releases the mutex.  In contrast, the only
> > way your loop can exit is if need_resched() returns true.
> >
> > Therefore, your results are irrelevant to mutex_spin_on_owner().  If you
> > want to show that mutex_spin_on_owner() has a problem, you should
> > instrument mutex_spin_on_owner() and run your instrumented version in
> > the kernel.
> 
> I know that the test is different from mutex_spin_on_owner(), the reason I used while(1) not the actual code instead is
> that I want to know how many jiffies will be elapsed when break the loop on need_resched in case of owner running long enough.
> If you want to see the test result on mutex_spin_on_owner(), I have the following test case (based on my earlier message
> in this thread, you can check if for some background context...):
> 
> 1. <in a kernel module> in the xxx_read() function, I have the follow code pieces:
>     /* idle loop for 5s between the 1st App get the lock and release it
>      Unsigned long j = jiffies + 5 * HZ;
>     /* identify ourself in the mutex_spin_on_owner function to void tons of printk message
>      * The first App will get the mutex lock in fast path, it will not enter into slow path, so it's easy
>      * to identify the 2nd App by tricky pid
>      */
>     current->pid |= (1 << 31);
>     mutex_lock(&c_mutex);
>     while(time_before(jiffies, j)){
>         cpu_relax();
>     }
>     mutex_unlock(&c_mutex);
>     current->pid &= ~(1 << 31);
> 
> 2. <in the kernel source code> I make some changes in mutex_spin_on_owner as below:
>     int mutex_spin_on_owner(struct mutex *lock, struct task_struct *owner)
> {
>         unsigned long j0, j1; /*add*/
>         if (!sched_feat(OWNER_SPIN))
>                 return 0;
> 
>         rcu_read_lock();
>         j0 = jiffies; /*add*/
>         while (owner_running(lock, owner)) {
>                 if (need_resched())
>                         break;
> 
>                 arch_mutex_cpu_relax();
>         }
>         j1 = jiffies;
>         rcu_read_unlock();
>         if(current->pid & (1 << 31))  /*add*/
>                 printk("j1-j0=%ld\n", j1-j0); /*add*/
>         /*
>          * We break out the loop above on need_resched() and when the
>          * owner changed, which is a sign for heavy contention. Return
>          * success only when lock->owner is NULL.
>          */
>         return lock->owner == NULL;
> }
> 
> 3. run the Apps in 2 different CPUs (0 and 2):
>    #taskset 0x00000001 ./main
>    #taskset 0x00000004 ./main
>    
>   The App running on cpu0 will get the lock directly, and it will in idle loop state for 5s owning the lock,
>   So App on cpu2 will enter into slow path and call mutex_spin_on_owner(), thus we can get the delta jiffies
>   When the loop break on need_resched(). The test result as below(HZ=1000, I run the test about 6 rounds):
>   j1-j0=19    -- NO.1
>   j1-j0=512   -- NO.2
>   j1-j0=316   -- NO.3
>   j1-j0=538   -- NO.4
>   j1-j0=331   -- NO.5
>   j1-j0=996   -- NO.6
> 
> obviously, the mutex will waste lots of CPU resource comparing semaphore in this case.
> I know the base rock of mutex performance optimization is "if the lock owner is running, it is likely to
> release the lock soon", I don't know if there are some statistics data to support this rational, in other words,
> what does make us get this conclusion?
> 
> >> If lucky enough, maybe in 99% case we break the loop by owner_running(lock, owner), meaning the lock owner release
> >> the lock in a very quick speed (can't be measured by jiffies).
> >
> > That is in fact the intent of the design.
> >
> > In theory, possible problems with the current code include:
> >
> > 1.      Unnecessarily blocking lower-priority tasks.
> >
> > 2.      Consuming energy spinning when the CPU might otherwise
> >        go idle and thus into a low-power state.
> >
> > But you need to measure the actual code running a realistic workload
> > to get a fair diagnosis of any problems that might be present.
> 
> Actually, as I mentioned earlier in this thread, I have no intention to care about the code design itself, I am just curious
> about the PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZATION of mutex, not others. Now I am writing some simple benchmark code which used to measure 
> the real performance of the 2 primitives with realistic workload, hopefully I can finish it in this weekend, I am not familiar
> with the user space codes :-)

Actual measurements of the real code showing the benefits of any change
you might propose would indeed be helpful.  ;-)

							Thanx, Paul

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