linux-kernel - Re: [rfc] "fair" rw spinlocks

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Date:	Mon, 7 Dec 2009 18:37:03 -0800
From:	"Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>
To:	"Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@...ssion.com>
Cc:	Andi Kleen <andi@...stfloor.org>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>,
	Christoph Hellwig <hch@...radead.org>,
	Nick Piggin <npiggin@...e.de>,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Oleg Nesterov <oleg@...hat.com>
Subject: Re: [rfc] "fair" rw spinlocks

On Mon, Dec 07, 2009 at 06:11:49PM -0800, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com> writes:
> 
> > On Mon, Dec 07, 2009 at 03:19:59PM -0800, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> >> Andi Kleen <andi@...stfloor.org> writes:
> >> 
> >> > ebiederm@...ssion.com (Eric W. Biederman) writes:
> >> >
> >> >> "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com> writes:
> >> >>>
> >> >>> Is it required that all of the processes see the signal before the
> >> >>> corresponding interrupt handler returns?  (My guess is "no", which
> >> >>> enables a trick or two, but thought I should ask.)
> >> >>
> >> >> Not that I recall.  I think it is just an I/O completed signal.
> >> >
> >> > Wasn't there the sysrq SAK too? That one definitely would need
> >> > to be careful about synchronicity.
> >> 
> >> SAK from sysrq is done through schedule work, I seem to recall the
> >> locking being impossible otherwise.  There is also send_sig_all and a
> >> few others from sysrq.  I expect we could legitimately make them
> >> schedule_work as well if needed.
> >
> > OK, I will chance it...  Here is one possible trick:
> >
> > o	Maintain a list of ongoing group-signal operations, protected
> > 	by some suitable lock.  These could be in a per-chain-locked
> > 	hash table, hashed by the signal target (e.g., pgrp).
> >
> > o	When a task is created, it scans the above list, committing
> > 	suicide (or doing whatever the signal requires) if appropriate.
> >
> > o	When creating a child task, the parent holds an SRCU across
> > 	creation.  It acquires SRCU before starting creation, and
> > 	releases it when it knows that the child has completed
> > 	scanning the above list.
> >
> > o	The updater does the following:
> >
> > 	o	Add its request to the above list.
> >
> > 	o	Wait for an SRCU grace period to elapse.
> >
> > 	o	Kill off everything currently in the task list,
> > 		and then wait for each such task to get to a point
> > 		where it can be guaranteed not to spawn additional
> > 		tasks.  (This might be mediated via a reference
> > 		count in the corresponding list element, or by
> > 		rescanning the task list, or any of a number of
> > 		similar tricks.)
> >
> > 		Of course, if the signal is non-fatal, then it is
> > 		necessary only to wait until the child has taken
> > 		the signal.
> >
> > 	o	If it is possible for a given task's children to
> > 		outlive it, despite the fact that the children must
> > 		commit suicide upon finding themselves indicated by the
> > 		list, wait for another SRCU grace period to elapse.
> > 		(This additional SRCU grace period would be required
> > 		for a non-fatal pgrp signal, for example.)
> >
> > 	o	Remove the element from the list.
> >
> > Does this approach make sense, or am I misunderstanding the problem?
> 
> I think that is about right.  I played with that idea a little bit.
> I was thinking of simply having new children return -ERESTARTSYS, and
> retry the fork.  I put it down because I decided that seems like a
> very twisted implementation of a read/write lock.
> 
> If we can scale noticeably better a than tasklist_lock it is
> definitely worth doing.  I think it is really easy to tie yourself up
> in pretzels thinking about this.

No argument here!!!

> An srcu in the pid structure that we hold while signaling tasks.
> Interesting.

;-)

> > Either way, one additional question...  It seems to me that non-fatal
> > signals really don't require the above mechanism, because if a task
> > handles the signal, and then spawns a child, one can argue that the
> > child came after the signal and should thus be unaffected.  Right?
> > Or more confusion on my part?
> 
> SIGSTOP also seems pretty important not to escape.  I'm not certain of
> the others.  I think I would get a bit upset if job control signals in
> the shell stopped working properly.  I think asking the question did
> that app do something wrong with SIGTERM or did the kernel drop it
> would drive me a bit batty.

Good point!!!  It does indeed seem to me that SIGSTOP needs to be
handled as carefully as does a fatal signal.  I guess that SIGCONT
is easier, at least unless there is some tricky way that a stopped
task can nevertheless spawn a new task.  ;-)

> It is hard to tell what breaks because most buggy implementations will
> work correctly most of the time.

Indeed you are quite right, and it is thus worthwhile burning a few
extra CPU cycles to faithfully emulate the old behavior.

							Thanx, Paul
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