Re: [PATCH v2] locking/pvqspinlock: Add lock holder CPU argument to pv_wait()

From: Pan Xinhui
Date: Wed Apr 20 2016 - 10:38:11 EST




On 2016å04æ20æ 22:19, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 20, 2016 at 10:15:09PM +0800, Pan Xinhui wrote:
>> So there is such case that we search the whole hashtable and the lock is not found. :(
>> Waiman assume that if l = null, the lock is not stored. however the lock might be there actually.
>> But to avoid the worst case I just mentioned above, it can quickly finish the lookup.
>
>
>>>> +
>>>> + /*
>>>> + * We try to locate the queue head pv_node by looking
>>>> + * up the hash table. If it is not found, use the
>>>> + * CPU in the previous node instead.
>>>> + */
>>>> + hn = pv_lookup_hash(lock);
>>>> + if (!hn)
>>>> + hn = pn;
>>>
>>> This is potentially expensive... it does not explain why this lookup can
>>> fail etc.. nor mentioned that lock stealing caveat.
>>>
>> Yes, it's expensive. Normally, PPC phyp don't always need the correct
>> holder. That means current vcpu can just give up its slice. There is
>> one lpar hvcall H_CONFER. I paste some spec below.
>
> Ok, so if we can indeed scan the _entire_ hashtable, then we really
> should not have that in common code. That's seriously expensive.
>
Okay, I will try to add the holder lookup code in arch/...

But I just come up with one idea,
in __pv_queued_spin_unlock_slowpath()
we will kick the node->cpu, who will become the holder soon.
I think we can somehow record the node->cpu and use it in pv_wait_node :)

thanks
xinhui