Date:   Thu, 27 Jul 2017 12:39:36 +0000 (UTC)
From:   Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@...icios.com>
To:     "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>
Cc:     Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
        linux-kernel <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>,
        Lai Jiangshan <jiangshanlai@...il.com>,
        dipankar <dipankar@...ibm.com>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Josh Triplett <josh@...htriplett.org>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>,
        David Howells <dhowells@...hat.com>,
        Eric Dumazet <edumazet@...gle.com>,
        fweisbec <fweisbec@...il.com>, Oleg Nesterov <oleg@...hat.com>,
        Will Deacon <will.deacon@....com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH tip/core/rcu 4/5] sys_membarrier: Add expedited option

----- On Jul 26, 2017, at 9:45 PM, Paul E. McKenney paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com wrote:

> On Wed, Jul 26, 2017 at 02:11:46PM -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
>> On Wed, Jul 26, 2017 at 08:37:23PM +0000, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
>> > ----- On Jul 26, 2017, at 2:30 PM, Paul E. McKenney paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com
>> > wrote:
>> > 
>> > > On Wed, Jul 26, 2017 at 06:01:15PM +0000, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
>> > >> ----- On Jul 26, 2017, at 11:42 AM, Paul E. McKenney paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com
>> > >> wrote:
>> > >> 
>> > >> > On Wed, Jul 26, 2017 at 09:46:56AM +0200, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
>> > >> >> On Tue, Jul 25, 2017 at 10:50:13PM +0000, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
>> > >> >> > This would implement a MEMBARRIER_CMD_PRIVATE_EXPEDITED (or such) flag
>> > >> >> > for expedited process-local effect. This differs from the "SHARED" flag,
>> > >> >> > since the SHARED flag affects threads accessing memory mappings shared
>> > >> >> > across processes as well.
>> > >> >> > 
>> > >> >> > I wonder if we could create a MEMBARRIER_CMD_SHARED_EXPEDITED behavior
>> > >> >> > by iterating on all memory mappings mapped into the current process,
>> > >> >> > and build a cpumask based on the union of all mm masks encountered ?
>> > >> >> > Then we could send the IPI to all cpus belonging to that cpumask. Or
>> > >> >> > am I missing something obvious ?
>> > >> >> 
>> > >> >> I would readily object to such a beast. You far too quickly end up
>> > >> >> having to IPI everybody because of some stupid shared map or something
>> > >> >> (yes I know, normal DSOs are mapped private).
>> > >> > 
>> > >> > Agreed, we should keep things simple to start with.  The user can always
>> > >> > invoke sys_membarrier() from each process.
>> > >> 
>> > >> Another alternative for a MEMBARRIER_CMD_SHARED_EXPEDITED would be rate-limiting
>> > >> per thread. For instance, we could add a new "ulimit" that would bound the
>> > >> number of expedited membarrier per thread that can be done per millisecond,
>> > >> and switch to synchronize_sched() whenever a thread goes beyond that limit
>> > >> for the rest of the time-slot.
>> > >> 
>> > >> A RT system that really cares about not having userspace sending IPIs
>> > >> to all cpus could set the ulimit value to 0, which would always use
>> > >> synchronize_sched().
>> > >> 
>> > >> Thoughts ?
>> > > 
>> > > The patch I posted reverts to synchronize_sched() in kernels booted with
>> > > rcupdate.rcu_normal=1.  ;-)
>> > > 
>> > > But who is pushing for multiple-process sys_membarrier()?  Everyone I
>> > > have talked to is OK with it being local to the current process.
>> > 
>> > I guess I'm probably the guilty one intending to do weird stuff in userspace ;)
>> > 
>> > Here are my two use-cases:
>> > 
>> > * a new multi-process liburcu flavor, useful if e.g. a set of processes are
>> >   responsible for updating a shared memory data structure, and a separate set
>> >   of processes read that data structure. The readers can be killed without ill
>> >   effect on the other processes. The synchronization could be done by one
>> >   multi-process liburcu flavor per reader process "group".
>> > 
>> > * lttng-ust user-space ring buffers (shared across processes).
>> > 
>> > Both rely on a shared memory mapping for communication between processes, and
>> > I would like to be able to issue a sys_membarrier targeting all CPUs that may
>> > currently touch the shared memory mapping.
>> > 
>> > I don't really need a system-wide effect, but I would like to be able to target
>> > a shared memory mapping and efficiently do an expedited sys_membarrier on all
>> > cpus involved.
>> > 
>> > With lttng-ust, the shared buffers can spawn across 1000+ processes, so
>> > asking each process to issue sys_membarrier would add lots of unneeded overhead,
>> > because this would issue lots of needless memory barriers.
>> > 
>> > Thoughts ?
>> 
>> Dealing explicitly with 1000+ processes sounds like no picnic.  It instead
>> sounds like a job for synchronize_sched_expedited().  ;-)
> 
> Actually...
> 
> Mathieu, does your use case require unprivileged access to sys_membarrier()?

Unfortunately, yes, it does require sys_membarrier to be used from non-root
both for lttng-ust and liburcu multi-process. And as Peter pointed out, stuff
like containers complicates things even for the root case.

Thanks,

Mathieu

> 
> 							Thanx, Paul

-- 
Mathieu Desnoyers
EfficiOS Inc.
http://www.efficios.com

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