linux-kernel - Re: [RESEND PATCH v5] locking/pvqspinlock: Relax cmpxchg's to improve performance on some archs

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Message-ID: <20170810081213.wtd7hgunnnekvm56@tardis>
Date:   Thu, 10 Aug 2017 16:12:13 +0800
From:   Boqun Feng <boqun.feng@...il.com>
To:     Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>
Cc:     Waiman Long <longman@...hat.com>, Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        Pan Xinhui <xinhui@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
        Andrea Parri <parri.andrea@...il.com>,
        Will Deacon <will.deacon@....com>,
        Paul McKenney <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: [RESEND PATCH v5] locking/pvqspinlock: Relax cmpxchg's to
 improve performance on some archs

On Wed, Aug 09, 2017 at 05:15:33PM +0200, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 09, 2017 at 05:06:03PM +0200, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> > Now, ARM64 for instance plays funny games, it does something along the
> > lines of:
> > 
> > cmpxchg(ptr, old, new)
> > {
> > 	do {
> > 		r = LL(ptr);
> > 		if (r != old)
> > 			return r; /* no barriers */
> > 		r = new
> > 	} while (SC_release(ptr, r));
> > 	smp_mb();
> > 	return r;
> > }
> > 
> > Thereby ordering things relative to the store on ptr, but the load can
> > very much escape. The thinking is that if success, we must observe the
> > latest value of ptr, but even in that case the load is not ordered and
> > could happen before.
> > 
> > However, since we're guaranteed to observe the latest value of ptr (on
> > success) it doesn't matter if we reordered the load, there is no newer
> > value possible.
> > 
> > So heaps of tricky, but correct afaict. Will?
> 
> And could not PPC do something similar:
> 
> cmpxchg(ptr, old, new)
> {
> 	lwsync();
> 	dp {
> 		r = LL(ptr);
> 		if (r != old)
> 			return;
> 		r = new;
> 	} while (SC(ptr, r));
> 	sync();
> 	return r;
> }
> 
> ?
> 
> the lwsync would make it store-release on SC with similar reasoning as
> above.
> 
> And lwsync allows 'stores reordered after loads', which allows the prior
> smp_store_release() to leak past.
> 
> Or is the reason this doesn't work on PPC that its RCpc?

Here is an example why PPC needs a sync() before the cmpxchg():

	https://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=144485396224519&w=2

and Paul Mckenney's detailed explanation about why this could happen:

	https://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=144485909826241&w=2

(Somehow, I feel like he was answering to a similar question question as
you ask here ;-))

And I think aarch64 doesn't have a problem here because it is "(other)
multi-copy atomic". Will?

Regards,
Boqun

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