linux-kernel - Re: [patch 2/6] mmu_notifier: Callbacks to invalidate address ranges

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Message-ID: <20080229212327.GC8091@v2.random>
Date:	Fri, 29 Feb 2008 22:23:27 +0100
From:	Andrea Arcangeli <andrea@...ranet.com>
To:	Christoph Lameter <clameter@....com>
Cc:	Nick Piggin <nickpiggin@...oo.com.au>, akpm@...ux-foundation.org,
	Robin Holt <holt@....com>, Avi Kivity <avi@...ranet.com>,
	Izik Eidus <izike@...ranet.com>,
	kvm-devel@...ts.sourceforge.net,
	Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@...llo.nl>,
	general@...ts.openfabrics.org,
	Steve Wise <swise@...ngridcomputing.com>,
	Roland Dreier <rdreier@...co.com>,
	Kanoj Sarcar <kanojsarcar@...oo.com>, steiner@....com,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-mm@...ck.org,
	daniel.blueman@...drics.com
Subject: Re: [patch 2/6] mmu_notifier: Callbacks to invalidate address
	ranges

On Fri, Feb 29, 2008 at 01:03:16PM -0800, Christoph Lameter wrote:
> That means we need both the anon_vma locks and the i_mmap_lock to become 
> semaphores. I think semaphores are better than mutexes. Rik and Lee saw 
> some performance improvements because list can be traversed in parallel 
> when the anon_vma lock is switched to be a rw lock.

The improvement was with a rw spinlock IIRC, so I don't see how it's
related to this.

Perhaps the rwlock spinlock can be changed to a rw semaphore without
measurable overscheduling in the fast path. However theoretically
speaking the rw_lock spinlock is more efficient than a rw semaphore in
case of a little contention during the page fault fast path because
the critical section is just a list_add so it'd be overkill to
schedule while waiting. That's why currently it's a spinlock (or rw
spinlock).

> Sounds like we get to a conceptually clean version here?

I don't have a strong opinion if it should become a semaphore
unconditionally or only with a CONFIG_XPMEM=y. But keep in mind
preempt-rt runs quite a bit slower, or we could rip spinlocks out of
the kernel in the first place ;)
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