linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] futex: add FUTEX_SET

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Message-ID: <4B0388E7.5080704@us.ibm.com>
Date:	Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:40:55 -0800
From:	Darren Hart <dvhltc@...ibm.com>
To:	Michel Lespinasse <walken@...gle.com>
CC:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] futex: add FUTEX_SET_WAIT operation

Michel Lespinasse wrote:

> One difficulty with adaptive spinning is that we want to avoid deadlocks.
> If two threads end up spinning in-kernel waiting for each other, we better
> have preemption enabled... or detect and deal with the situation somehow.

This is really only a problem for SCHED_FIFO tasks right? (SCHED_OTHER 
should get scheduled() out when CFS deems they've exhausted their fair 
share). Real-Time tasks typically should be using PI anyway as adaptive 
locking is non-deterministic and doesn't provide for PI. So I'm not sure 
how critical this problem is in practice.

> Also one aspect I dislike is that this would impose a given format on the
> futex for storing the TID.

We do have a precedent for this with robust as well as PI futexes.

  I would prefer if there were several bits available
> in the futex for userspace to do whatever they want. 8 bits would likely
> be enough, which leaves 24 for the TID - enough for us, but I have no idea
> if that's good enough for upstream inclusion. It that's not possible,
> one possible compromise could be:

And we already use two of those bits for OWNER_DIED and FUTEX_WAITERS. 
Perhaps you just have to choose between your own value scheme and 
adaptive spinning (sounds horribly limiting as I'm typing this...).

> 
> - userspace passes a TID (which it extracted from the futex value; but kernel
>   does not necessarily know how)
> - kernel spins until that TID goes to sleep, or the futex value is not equal
>   to val or setval anymore
> - if val != setval and the futex value is val, set it to setval
> - if the futex valus is setval, block, otherwise -EWOULDBLOCK.
> 
> If the lock got stolen from a different thread, userspace can decide to
> retry with or without adaptive spinning.

I'll think on this a bit more...

> 
> That would be the most generic interface I can think of, though it's
> starting to be a LOT of parameters - actually, too many to pass through
> the _syscall6 interface.
> 
> 
> I also like Darren's suggestion to do a FUTEX_SET_WAIT_REQUEUE_PI,
> but it's hitting the same 'too many parameters' limitation as well :/

We don't use val2 for FUTEX_WAIT_REQUEUE_PI, so we should be able to use 
that for setval.


-- 
Darren Hart
IBM Linux Technology Center
Real-Time Linux Team
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