linux-kernel - Re: XFS stack overhead

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Date:	Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:21:54 -0500
From:	Eric Sandeen <sandeen@...hat.com>
To:	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>
CC:	Arjan van de Ven <arjan@...radead.org>,
	Dave Jones <davej@...hat.com>,
	Linux Kernel <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>, esandeen@...hat.com,
	cebbert@...hat.com, "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
Subject: Re: XFS stack overhead

Ingo Molnar wrote:
> * Eric Sandeen <sandeen@...hat.com> wrote:
> 
>> Arjan van de Ven wrote:
>>> On Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:50:02 -0500
>>> Eric Sandeen <sandeen@...hat.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Ingo Molnar wrote:
>>>>> (Cc:-ed Arjan too.)
>>>>>
>>>>> * Dave Jones <davej@...hat.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> 113c5413cf9051cc50b88befdc42e3402bb92115 introduced a change that
>>>>>> made CC_STACKPROTECTOR_ALL not-selectable if someone enables 
>>>>>> CC_STACKPROTECTOR.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> We've noticed in Fedora that this has introduced noticable
>>>>>> overhead on some functions, including those which don't even have
>>>>>> any on-stack variables.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> According to the gcc manpage, -fstack-protector will protect
>>>>>> functions with as little as 8 bytes of stack usage. So we're
>>>>>> introducing a huge amount of overhead, to close a small amount of
>>>>>> vulnerability (the >0 && <8 case).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The overhead as it stands right now means this whole option is 
>>>>>> unusable for a distro kernel without reverting the above commit.
>>>>> Exactly what workload showed overhead, and how much?
>>>>>
>>>>> 	Ingo
>>>> I had xfs blowing up pretty nicely; granted, xfs is not svelte but it
>>>> was never this bad before.
>>>>
>>> do you have any indication that SP actually increases the stack
>>> footprint by that much? it's only a few bytes....
>>>
>>>
>> Here's a sample of some of the largest xfs stack users,
>> and the effect stack-protector had on them.  This was just
>> done with objdump -d xfs.ko | scripts/checkstack.pl; I don't
>> know if there's extra runtime stack overhead w/ stackprotector?
>>
>> -Eric
>>
>> function                  nostack stackprot delta delta %
>> xfs_bmapi                      376      408    32  9%
>> xfs_bulkstat                   328      344    16  5%
>> _xfs_trans_commit              296      312    16  5%
>> xfs_iomap_write_delay          264      280    16  6%
>> xfs_file_ioctl                 248      312    64 26%
>> xfs_symlink                    248      264    16  6%
>> xfs_bunmapi                    232      280    48 21%
>> xlog_do_recovery_pass          232      248    16  7%
>> xfs_trans_unreserve_and_mod_sb 224      240    16  7%
>> xfs_bmap_del_extent            216      248    32 15%
>> xfs_cluster_write              216      232    16  7%
>> xfs_file_compat_ioctl          216      296    80 37%
>> xfs_attr_set_int               200      216    16  8%
>> xfs_bmap_add_extent_delay_real 200      248    48 24%
> 
> Note that those are very large stack frames to begin with.
> 
> 3496 bytes - that's a _lot_ - can anyone even run XFS with 4K stacks on? 

The above isn't a callchain; those are just the biggest users.

Yes, xfs works w/4k stacks but sometimes not over complex storage.

> With stackprotector it's 3928 - a 12% increase - which certainly does 
> not help - but the basic problem is the large stack footprint to begin 
> with.

I can find plenty of examples of > 300 bytes stack users in the core
kernel write path too, I'm just using xfs as an example...

> Also, the posting apparently mixes 'stack overhead' with 'runtime 
> overhead'.

right, that's why I asked, I'm not sure if stackprotector has runtime
overhead as well.

-Eric

> 	Ingo

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