Date:	Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:05:09 -0400
From:	Gregory Haskins <ghaskins@...ell.com>
To:	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>
CC:	mingo@...e.hu, rostedt@...dmis.org, tglx@...utronix.de,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-rt-users@...r.kernel.org,
	gregory.haskins@...il.com, andi@...stfloor.org,
	shemminger@...tta.com
Subject: Re: [RT PATCH v2] seqlock: serialize against writers

Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> On Sat, 2008-08-30 at 08:32 -0400, Gregory Haskins wrote:
>   
>> Peter Zijlstra wrote:
>>     
>>> On Fri, 2008-08-29 at 14:03 -0400, Gregory Haskins wrote:
>>>   
>>>       
>>>> *Patch submitted for inclusion in PREEMPT_RT 26-rt4.  Applies to 2.6.26.3-rt3*
>>>>
>>>> Hi Ingo, Steven, Thomas,
>>>>   Please consider for -rt4.  This fixes a nasty deadlock on my systems under
>>>>   heavy load.
>>>>
>>>> [
>>>> Changelog:
>>>> 	v2: only touch seqlock_t because raw_seqlock_t doesn't require
>>>> 	    serialization and userspace cannot modify data during a read
>>>>
>>>> 	v1: initial release
>>>> ]
>>>>
>>>> -Greg
>>>>
>>>> ----
>>>> seqlock: serialize against writers
>>>>
>>>> Seqlocks have always advertised that readers do not "block", but this was
>>>> never really true.  Readers have always logically blocked at the head of
>>>> the critical section under contention with writers, regardless of whether
>>>> they were allowed to run code or not.
>>>>
>>>> Recent changes in this space (88a411c07b6fedcfc97b8dc51ae18540bd2beda0)
>>>> have turned this into a more explicit blocking operation in mainline.
>>>> However, this change highlights a short-coming in -rt because the
>>>> normal seqlock_ts are preemptible.  This means that we can potentially
>>>> deadlock should a reader spin waiting for a write critical-section to end
>>>> while the writer is preempted.
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>> Ah, the point I was missing is higher-priority realtime task, in which
>>> case the write side will never run because it wont preempt.
>>>   
>>>       
>> Yep
>>     
>>>   
>>>       
>>>> This patch changes the internal implementation to use a rwlock and forces
>>>> the readers to serialize with the writers under contention.  This will
>>>> have the advantage that -rt seqlocks_t will sleep the reader if deadlock
>>>> were imminent, and it will pi-boost the writer to prevent inversion.
>>>>
>>>> This fixes a deadlock discovered under testing where all high prioritiy
>>>> readers were hogging the cpus and preventing a writer from releasing the
>>>> lock.
>>>>
>>>> Since seqlocks are designed to be used as rarely-write locks, this should
>>>> not affect the performance in the fast-path
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>> Still dont like this patch, once you have a rwlock you might as well go
>>> all the way.
>>>       
>> Why?  
>>     
>
> Because the second point.
>
>   
>> A full rwlock will still be much slower since the readers will
>> always need an atomic op.  This construct only uses atomic ops in the
>> slow path under contention, which should be rare, and is thus still
>> superior when retries are permissible to the design.
>>
>>     
>>>  Esp since this half-arsed construct defeats PI in certain
>>> cases.
>>>   
>>>       
>> Ouch.  While I admit that you can still get into inversion scenarios
>> once the reader leaves the seqbegin, this is the nature of seqlocks. 
>> The only ways I can think of to get around this involve atomic ops in
>> the fast path, which I think should be avoided.  What would you suggest
>> otherwise?
>>     
>
> Since we're talking -rt here, determinism rules, so bite the bullet and
> do full PI.
>
> The only reason we made all that stuff preemptable is to gain
> determinism, that also means we have to do the PI thing.
>   
Yeah, you have a point.  I still think this patch will solve the
deadlock thing, so please consider it in the interim.  I will whip up a
full PI solution next week.

-Greg



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