linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH tip/core/urgent 3/7] rcu: Streamline code produced by __rcu_read

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Date:	Wed, 20 Jul 2011 15:44:55 -0700
From:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
To:	"Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>
Cc:	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, mingo@...e.hu, laijs@...fujitsu.com,
	dipankar@...ibm.com, akpm@...ux-foundation.org,
	mathieu.desnoyers@...ymtl.ca, josh@...htriplett.org,
	niv@...ibm.com, tglx@...utronix.de, peterz@...radead.org,
	rostedt@...dmis.org, Valdis.Kletnieks@...edu, dhowells@...hat.com,
	eric.dumazet@...il.com, darren@...art.com, patches@...aro.org,
	greearb@...delatech.com, edt@....ca
Subject: Re: [PATCH tip/core/urgent 3/7] rcu: Streamline code produced by __rcu_read_unlock()

On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 11:26 AM, Paul E. McKenney
<paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
> Given some common flag combinations, particularly -Os, gcc will inline
> rcu_read_unlock_special() despite its being in an unlikely() clause.
> Use noinline to prohibit this misoptimization.

Btw, I suspect that we should at least look at what it would mean if
we make the rcu_read_lock_nesting and the preempt counters both be
per-cpu variables instead of making them per-thread/process counters.

Then, when we switch threads, we'd just save/restore them from the
process register save area.

There's a lot of critical code sequences (spin-lock/unlock, rcu
read-lock/unlock) that currently fetches the thread/process pointer
only to then offset it and increment the count. I get the strong
feeling that code generation could be improved and we could avoid one
level of indirection by just making it a per-thread counter.

For example, instead of __rcu_read_lock: looking like this (and being
an external function, partly because of header file dependencies on
the data structures involved):

  push   %rbp
  mov    %rsp,%rbp
  mov    %gs:0xb580,%rax
  incl   0x100(%rax)
  leaveq
  retq

it should inline to just something like

  incl %gs:0x100

instead. Same for the preempt counter.

Of course, it would need to involve making sure that we pick a good
cacheline etc that is already always dirty. But other than that, is
there any real downside?

                       Linus
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