Signed-off-by: Mathieu Desnoyers --- Documentation/immediate.txt | 180 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 180 insertions(+) Index: linux-2.6-lttng/Documentation/immediate.txt =================================================================== --- /dev/null 1970-01-01 00:00:00.000000000 +0000 +++ linux-2.6-lttng/Documentation/immediate.txt 2007-07-13 20:39:51.000000000 -0400 @@ -0,0 +1,180 @@ + Using the Immediate Values + + Mathieu Desnoyers + + +This document introduces Immediate Values and their use. + +* Purpose of immediate values + +An immediate value is used to compile into the kernel variables that sits within +the instruction stream. They are meant to be rarely updated but read often. +Using immediate values for these variables will save cache lines. + +This infrastructure is specialized in supporting dynamic patching of the values +in the instruction stream when multiple CPUs are running without disturbing the +normal system behavior. + +Compiling code meant to be rarely enabled at runtime can be done using +immediate_if() as condition surrounding the code. + +* Usage + +In order to use the macro immediate, you should include linux/immediate.h. + +#include + +immediate_char_t this_immediate; +EXPORT_SYMBOL(this_immediate); + + +Add, in your code : + +Use immediate_set(&this_immediate) to set the immediate value. + +Use immediate_read(&this_immediate) to read the immediate value. + +The immediate mechanism supports inserting multiple instances of the same +immediate. Immediate values can be put in inline functions, inlined static +functions, and unrolled loops. + +If you have to read the immediate values from a function declared as __init or +__exit, you should explicitly use _immediate_read(), which will fall back on a +global variable read. Failing to do so will leave a reference to the __init +section after it is freed (it would generate a modpost warning). + +The prefered idiom to dynamically enable compiled-in code is to use +immediate_if (&this_immediate), which may eventually use gcc improvements to +provide a jump instruction patching based condition instead of a immediate value +feeding a conditional jump. You should use _immediate_if () instead of +immediate_if () in functions marked __init or __exit. + +immediate_set_early() should be used only at early kernel boot time, before SMP +is activated. + +If you need to declare your own immediate types (for instance, a pointer to +struct task_struct), use: + +DEFINE_IMMEDIATE_TYPE(struct task_struct*, immediate_task_struct_ptr_t); + +and declare your variable with: +immediate_task_struct_ptr_t myptr; + +You can choose to set an initial static value to the immediate by using, for +instance: + +immediate_task_struct_ptr_t myptr = IMMEDIATE_INIT(10); + + +* Optimization for a given architecture + +One can implement optimized immediate values for a given architecture by +replacing asm-$ARCH/immediate.h. + +* Performance improvement + +* Memory hit for a data-based branch + +Here are the results on a 3GHz Pentium 4: + +number of tests : 100 +number of branches per test : 100000 +memory hit cycles per iteration (mean) : 636.611 +L1 cache hit cycles per iteration (mean) : 89.6413 +instruction stream based test, cycles per iteration (mean) : 85.3438 +Just getting the pointer from a modulo on a pseudo-random value, doing + noting with it, cycles per iteration (mean) : 77.5044 + +So: +Base case: 77.50 cycles +instruction stream based test: +7.8394 cycles +L1 cache hit based test: +12.1369 cycles +Memory load based test: +559.1066 cycles + +So let's say we have a ping flood coming at +(14014 packets transmitted, 14014 received, 0% packet loss, time 1826ms) +7674 packets per second. If we put 2 markers for irq entry/exit, it +brings us to 15348 markers sites executed per second. + +(15348 exec/s) * (559 cycles/exec) / (3G cycles/s) = 0.0029 +We therefore have a 0.29% slowdown just on this case. + +Compared to this, the instruction stream based test will cause a +slowdown of: + +(15348 exec/s) * (7.84 cycles/exec) / (3G cycles/s) = 0.00004 +For a 0.004% slowdown. + +If we plan to use this for memory allocation, spinlock, and all sort of +very high event rate tracing, we can assume it will execute 10 to 100 +times more sites per second, which brings us to 0.4% slowdown with the +instruction stream based test compared to 29% slowdown with the memory +load based test on a system with high memory pressure. + + + +* Markers impact under heavy memory load + +Running a kernel with my LTTng instrumentation set, in a test that +generates memory pressure (from userspace) by trashing L1 and L2 caches +between calls to getppid() (note: syscall_trace is active and calls +a marker upon syscall entry and syscall exit; markers are disarmed). +This test is done in user-space, so there are some delays due to IRQs +coming and to the scheduler. (UP 2.6.22-rc6-mm1 kernel, task with -20 +nice level) + +My first set of results : Linear cache trashing, turned out not to be +very interesting, because it seems like the linearity of the memset on a +full array is somehow detected and it does not "really" trash the +caches. + +Now the most interesting result : Random walk L1 and L2 trashing +surrounding a getppid() call. + +- Markers compiled out (but syscall_trace execution forced) +number of tests : 10000 +No memory pressure +Reading timestamps takes 108.033 cycles +getppid : 1681.4 cycles +With memory pressure +Reading timestamps takes 102.938 cycles +getppid : 15691.6 cycles + + +- With the immediate values based markers: +number of tests : 10000 +No memory pressure +Reading timestamps takes 108.006 cycles +getppid : 1681.84 cycles +With memory pressure +Reading timestamps takes 100.291 cycles +getppid : 11793 cycles + + +- With global variables based markers: +number of tests : 10000 +No memory pressure +Reading timestamps takes 107.999 cycles +getppid : 1669.06 cycles +With memory pressure +Reading timestamps takes 102.839 cycles +getppid : 12535 cycles + + +The result is quite interesting in that the kernel is slower without +markers than with markers. I explain it by the fact that the data +accessed is not layed out in the same manner in the cache lines when the +markers are compiled in or out. It seems that it aligns the function's +data better to compile-in the markers in this case. + +But since the interesting comparison is between the immediate values and +global variables based markers, and because they share the same memory +layout, except for the movl being replaced by a movz, we see that the +global variable based markers (2 markers) adds 742 cycles to each system +call (syscall entry and exit are traced and memory locations for both +global variables lie on the same cache line). + +Therefore, not only is it interesting to use the immediate values to +dynamically activate dormant code such as the markers, but I think it +should also be considered as a replacement for many of the "read mostly" +static variables. -- Mathieu Desnoyers Computer Engineering Ph.D. Student, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal OpenPGP key fingerprint: 8CD5 52C3 8E3C 4140 715F BA06 3F25 A8FE 3BAE 9A68 - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/