Re: [PATCH RFC 0/9] Reduce ratelimit's false-positive misses

From: Paul E. McKenney
Date: Thu Apr 24 2025 - 20:27:51 EST


Hello!

This v3 series replaces open-coded uses of the ratelimit_state structure
with formal APIs, counts all rate-limit misses, replaces jiffies=0 special
case with a flag, provides a ___ratelimit() trylock-failure fastpath to
(almost) eliminate false-positive misses, simplifies the code, and adds
a simple test.

The key point of this series is the reduction of false-positive misses.

The individual patches are as follows:

1. Add trivial kunit test for ratelimit.

2. Create functions to handle ratelimit_state internals.

3. Avoid open-coded use of ratelimit_state structure's ->missed
field.

4. Avoid open-coded use of ratelimit_state structure's ->missed
field.

5. Avoid open-coded use of ratelimit_state structure's internals.

6. Convert the ->missed field to atomic_t.

7. Count misses due to lock contention.

8. Avoid jiffies=0 special case.

9. Reduce ___ratelimit() false-positive rate limiting, courtesy of
Petr Mladek.

10. Allow zero ->burst to disable ratelimiting.

11. Force re-initialization when rate-limiting re-enabled.

12. Don't flush misses counter if RATELIMIT_MSG_ON_RELEASE.

13. Avoid atomic decrement if already rate-limited.

14. Avoid atomic decrement under lock if already rate-limited.

15. Warn if ->interval or ->burst are negative, courtesy of Petr
Mladek.

16. Simplify common-case exit path.

17. Use nolock_ret label to save a couple of lines of code.

18. Use nolock_ret label to collapse lock-failure code.

19. Use nolock_ret restructuring to collapse common case code.

20. Drop redundant accesses to burst.

Changes since v2:

o Apply feedback from Bert Karwatzki, Srikanth Aithal, and Mark
Brown, fixing a hang that happened on some systems.

o Applied Reviewed-by tags and added links.

o Added a prototype patch from Petr Mladek that splats if either
interval or burst are negative.

o Added several commits that simplify the code.

Changes since v1 (RFC):

o Switch from lockless fastpath to carrying out needed updates
upon trylock failure, per Petr Mladek feedback. This greatly
simplifies the code and is a much smaller change from the
current code. There is a small performance penalty compared to
the lockless fastpath, but not enough to matter.

o Never unconditionally acquire the lock, again per Petr Mladek
feedback.

o Better define effects of non-positive burst values (always
ratelimit) and non-positive interval values (never ratelimit
when the burst value is positive).

o The changes from Petr's original are supplied as five incremental
patches, but could easily be folded into Petr's original if
desired. (Left to my lazy self, they stay as-is.)

Thanx, Paul

------------------------------------------------------------------------

b/drivers/char/random.c | 9 +
b/drivers/gpu/drm/amd/pm/amdgpu_pm.c | 11 --
b/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_perf.c | 8 -
b/include/linux/ratelimit.h | 40 +++++++-
b/include/linux/ratelimit_types.h | 2
b/lib/Kconfig.debug | 11 ++
b/lib/ratelimit.c | 8 -
b/lib/tests/Makefile | 1
b/lib/tests/test_ratelimit.c | 79 ++++++++++++++++
include/linux/ratelimit.h | 13 +-
include/linux/ratelimit_types.h | 3
lib/ratelimit.c | 165 ++++++++++++++++++++---------------
12 files changed, 246 insertions(+), 104 deletions(-)