Date:	Thu, 18 Sep 2008 12:18:28 +0800
From:	Lai Jiangshan <laijs@...fujitsu.com>
To:	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>
CC:	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	"Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
	Dipankar Sarma <dipankar@...ibm.com>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>, manfred@...orfullife.com
Subject: [RFC PATCH] rcu: introduce kfree_rcu()


sometimes a rcu callback is just calling kfree() to free a struct's memory
(we say this callback is a trivial callback.).
this patch introduce kfree_rcu() to do these things directly, easily.

There are 4 reasons that we need kfree_rcu():

1) unloadable modules:
   a module(rcu callback is defined in this module) using rcu must
   call rcu_barrier() when unload. rcu_barrier() will increase
   the system's overhead(the more cpus the worse) and
   rcu_barrier() is very time-consuming. if all rcu callback defined
   in this module are trivial callback, we can just call kfree_rcu()
   instead, save a rcu_barrier() when unload.

2) duplicate code:
   all trivial callback are duplicate code though the structs to be freed
   are different. it's just a container_of() and a kfree().
   There are about 50% callbacks are trivial callbacks for call_rcu() in
   current kernel code.

3) cache:
   the instructions of trivial callback is not in the cache supposedly.
   calling a trivial callback will let to cache missing very likely.
   the more trivial callback the more cache missing. OK, this is
   not a problem now or in a few days: Only less than 1% trivial callback
   are called in running kernel.

4) future:
   the number of user of rcu is increasing. new code for rcu is
   trivial callback very likely. it means more modules using rcu
   and more duplicate code(may come to 90% of callbacks is trivial
   callbacks) and more cache missing.

Implementation:
   there were a lot of ideas came out when i implemented kfree_rcu().
   I chose the simplest one as this patch shows. but these implementation
   may cannot be used for to free a struct larger than 16KBytes.

kfree_rcu_bh()? kfree_rcu_sched()?
   these two are not need current. call_rcu_bh() & call_rcu_sched()
   are hardly be called(and hardly be called for trivial callback).

vfree_rcu()?
   No, vfree() is not atomic function, will not be called in softirq.

Signed-off-by: Lai Jiangshan <laijs@...fujitsu.com>
---
diff --git a/include/linux/rcupdate.h b/include/linux/rcupdate.h
index e8b4039..04c654f 100644
--- a/include/linux/rcupdate.h
+++ b/include/linux/rcupdate.h
@@ -253,4 +253,25 @@ extern void rcu_barrier_sched(void);
 extern void rcu_init(void);
 extern int rcu_needs_cpu(int cpu);
 
+#define __KFREE_RCU_MAX_OFFSET 4095
+#define KFREE_RCU_MAX_OFFSET (sizeof(void *) * __KFREE_RCU_MAX_OFFSET)
+
+#define __rcu_reclaim(head) \
+do { \
+	unsigned long __offset = (unsigned long)head->func; \
+	if (__offset <= __KFREE_RCU_MAX_OFFSET) \
+		kfree((void *)head - sizeof(void *) * __offset); \
+	else \
+		head->func(head); \
+} while(0)
+
+
+/**
+ * kfree_rcu - free previously allocated memory after a grace period.
+ * @ptr:  pointer returned by kmalloc.
+ * @head: structure to be used for queueing the RCU updates. This structure
+ *        is a part of previously allocated memory @ptr.
+ */
+extern void kfree_rcu(const void *ptr, struct rcu_head *head);
+
 #endif /* __LINUX_RCUPDATE_H */
diff --git a/kernel/rcuclassic.c b/kernel/rcuclassic.c
index aad93cd..5a14190 100644
--- a/kernel/rcuclassic.c
+++ b/kernel/rcuclassic.c
@@ -232,7 +232,7 @@ static void rcu_do_batch(struct rcu_data *rdp)
 	while (list) {
 		next = list->next;
 		prefetch(next);
-		list->func(list);
+		__rcu_reclaim(list);
 		list = next;
 		if (++count >= rdp->blimit)
 			break;
diff --git a/kernel/rcupdate.c b/kernel/rcupdate.c
index 467d594..aa9b56a 100644
--- a/kernel/rcupdate.c
+++ b/kernel/rcupdate.c
@@ -162,6 +162,18 @@ void rcu_barrier_sched(void)
 }
 EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(rcu_barrier_sched);
 
+void kfree_rcu(const void *ptr, struct rcu_head *head)
+{
+	unsigned long offset;
+	typedef void (*rcu_callback)(struct rcu_head *);
+
+	offset = (void *)head - (void *)ptr;
+	BUG_ON(offset > KFREE_RCU_MAX_OFFSET);
+
+	call_rcu(head, (rcu_callback)(offset / sizeof(void *)));
+}
+EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(kfree_rcu);
+
 void __init rcu_init(void)
 {
 	__rcu_init();
diff --git a/kernel/rcupreempt.c b/kernel/rcupreempt.c
index 2782793..62a9e54 100644
--- a/kernel/rcupreempt.c
+++ b/kernel/rcupreempt.c
@@ -1108,7 +1108,7 @@ static void rcu_process_callbacks(struct softirq_action *unused)
 	spin_unlock_irqrestore(&rdp->lock, flags);
 	while (list) {
 		next = list->next;
-		list->func(list);
+		__rcu_reclaim(list);
 		list = next;
 		RCU_TRACE_ME(rcupreempt_trace_invoke);
 	}

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