linux-kernel - [PATCH 1/3] fs: optimize inotify/fsnotify code for unwatched files

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Message-Id: <20150630220455.7DE1D236@viggo.jf.intel.com>
Date:	Tue, 30 Jun 2015 15:04:55 -0700
From:	Dave Hansen <dave@...1.net>
To:	dave@...1.net
Cc:	dave.hansen@...ux.intel.com, akpm@...ux-foundation.org,
	jack@...e.cz, viro@...iv.linux.org.uk, eparis@...hat.com,
	john@...nmccutchan.com, rlove@...ve.org, ak@...ux.intel.com,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH 1/3] fs: optimize inotify/fsnotify code for unwatched files

From: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...ux.intel.com>

I have a _tiny_ microbenchmark that sits in a loop and writes
single bytes to a file.  Writing one byte to a tmpfs file is
around 2x slower than reading one byte from a file, which is a
_bit_ more than I expecte.  This is a dumb benchmark, but I think
it's hard to deny that write() is a hot path and we should avoid
unnecessary overhead there.

I did a 'perf record' of 30-second samples of read and write.
The top item in a diffprofile is srcu_read_lock() from
fsnotify().  There are active inotify fd's from systemd, but
nothing is actually listening to the file or its part of
the filesystem.

I *think* we can avoid taking the srcu_read_lock() for the
common case where there are no actual marks on the file.
This means that there will both be nothing to notify for
*and* implies that there is no need for clearing the ignore
mask.

This patch gave a 13.1% speedup in writes/second on my test,
which is an improvement from the 10.8% that I saw with the
last version.

Signed-off-by: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...ux.intel.com>
Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc: Jan Kara <jack@...e.cz>
Cc: Al Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>
Cc: Eric Paris <eparis@...hat.com>
Cc: John McCutchan <john@...nmccutchan.com>
Cc: Robert Love <rlove@...ve.org>
Cc: Andi Kleen <ak@...ux.intel.com>
Cc: linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
---

 b/fs/notify/fsnotify.c |   10 ++++++++++
 1 file changed, 10 insertions(+)

diff -puN fs/notify/fsnotify.c~optimize-fsnotify fs/notify/fsnotify.c
--- a/fs/notify/fsnotify.c~optimize-fsnotify	2015-06-30 15:03:56.819399401 -0700
+++ b/fs/notify/fsnotify.c	2015-06-30 15:03:56.822399536 -0700
@@ -205,6 +205,16 @@ int fsnotify(struct inode *to_tell, __u3
 		mnt = NULL;

 	/*
+	 * Optimization: srcu_read_lock() has a memory barrier which can
+	 * be expensive.  It protects walking the *_fsnotify_marks lists.
+	 * However, if we do not walk the lists, we do not have to do
+	 * SRCU because we have no references to any objects and do not
+	 * need SRCU to keep them "alive".
+	 */
+	if (hlist_empty(&to_tell->i_fsnotify_marks) &&
+	    (!mnt || hlist_empty(&mnt->mnt_fsnotify_marks)))
+		return 0;
+	/*
 	 * if this is a modify event we may need to clear the ignored masks
 	 * otherwise return if neither the inode nor the vfsmount care about
 	 * this type of event.
_
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/