Date:	Mon, 08 Jun 2015 21:41:42 -0700
From:	Davidlohr Bueso <dave@...olabs.net>
To:	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>
Cc:	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>,
	Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>,
	Mike Galbraith <umgwanakikbuti@...il.com>,
	"Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
	Sebastian Andrzej Siewior <bigeasy@...utronix.de>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH -rfc 4/4] locking/rtmutex: Support spin on owner (osq)

On Fri, 2015-06-05 at 15:59 +0200, Thomas Gleixner wrote:
> On Tue, 19 May 2015, Davidlohr Bueso wrote:
> >  
> > +/*
> > + * Lockless alternative to rt_mutex_has_waiters() as we do not need the
> > + * wait_lock to check if we are in, for instance, a transitional state
> > + * after calling mark_rt_mutex_waiters().
> 
> Before I get into a state of brain melt, could you please explain that
> in an understandable way?

With that I meant that we could check the owner to see if the
RT_MUTEX_HAS_WAITERS bit was set without taking the wait_lock and no
owner.

> 
> rt_mutex_has_waiters() looks at the root pointer of the rbtree head
> whether that's empty. You can do a lockless check of that as well,
> right? So what's the FAST part of that function and how is that
> related to a point after we called mark_rt_mutex_waiters()?

You're right, we could use rt_mutex_has_waiters(). When I thought of
this originally, I was considering something like:

if (rt_mutex_has_waiters(lock)) {
	if (current->prio >= rt_mutex_top_waiter(lock)->prio)
	...

Which obviously requires the wait_lock, but I did not consider just
using the tree. However, the consequence I see in doing this is that we
would miss scenarios where mark_rt_mutex_waiters() is called (under nil
owner, for example), so we would force tasks to block only when there
are truly waiters.

> > + */
> > +static inline bool rt_mutex_has_waiters_fast(struct rt_mutex *lock)
> > +{
> > +	unsigned long val = (unsigned long)lock->owner;
> > +
> > +	if (!val)
> > +		return false;
> > +	return val & RT_MUTEX_HAS_WAITERS;
> > +}
> > +
> 
> > +/*
> > + * Initial check for entering the mutex spinning loop
> > + */
> > +static inline bool rt_mutex_can_spin_on_owner(struct rt_mutex *lock)
> > +{
> > +	struct task_struct *owner;
> > +	/* default return to spin: if no owner, the lock is free */
> 
> 
> Rather than having a comment in the middle of the variable declaration
> section, I'd prefer a comment explaing the whole logic of this
> function.

Ok.

> > +	int ret = true;
> 
> > +static bool rt_mutex_optimistic_spin(struct rt_mutex *lock)
> > +{
> > +	bool taken = false;
> > +
> > +	preempt_disable();
> > +
> > +	if (!rt_mutex_can_spin_on_owner(lock))
> > +		goto done;
> > +	/*
> > +	 * In order to avoid a stampede of mutex spinners trying to
> > +	 * acquire the mutex all at once, the spinners need to take a
> > +	 * MCS (queued) lock first before spinning on the owner field.
> > +	 */
> > +	if (!osq_lock(&lock->osq))
> > +		goto done;
> 
> Hmm. The queue lock is serializing potential spinners, right?

Yes.

> 
> So that's going to lead to a potential priority ordering problem
> because if a lower prio task wins the racing to the ocq_lock queue,
> then the higher prio waiter will be queued behind and blocked from
> taking the lock first.

Hmm yes, ocq is a fair lock. However I believe this is mitigated by (a)
the conservative spinning approach, and (b) by osq_lock's need_resched()
check, so at least a spinner will abort if a higher prio task comes in.
But of course, this only deals with spinners, and we cannot account for
a lower prio owner task.

So if this is not acceptable, I guess we'll have to do without the mcs
like properties.

Thanks,
Davidlohr


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