linux-kernel - [PATCH] VFS: use synchronize_rcu_expedited() in namespace

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Date:   Thu, 26 Oct 2017 13:26:37 +1100
From:   NeilBrown <neilb@...e.com>
To:     Alexander Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>
Cc:     "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
        Josh Triplett <josh@...htriplett.org>
Subject: [PATCH] VFS: use synchronize_rcu_expedited() in namespace_unlock()

The synchronize_rcu() in namespace_unlock() is called every time
a filesystem is unmounted.  If a great many filesystems are mounted,
this can cause a noticable slow-down in, for example, system shutdown.

The sequence:
  mkdir -p /tmp/Mtest/{0..5000}
  time for i in /tmp/Mtest/*; do mount -t tmpfs tmpfs $i ; done
  time umount /tmp/Mtest/*

on a 4-cpu VM can report 8 seconds to mount the tmpfs filesystems, and
100 seconds to unmount them.

Boot the same VM with 1 CPU and it takes 18 seconds to mount the
tmpfs filesystems, but only 36 to unmount.

If we change the synchronize_rcu() to synchronize_rcu_expedited()
the umount time on a 4-cpu VM is 8 seconds to mount and 0.6 to
unmount.

I think this 200-fold speed up is worth the slightly higher system
impact of use synchronize_rcu_expedited().

Signed-off-by: NeilBrown <neilb@...e.com>
---

Cc: to Paul and Josh in case they'll correct me if using _expedited()
is really bad here.

Thanks,
NeilBrown

 fs/namespace.c | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/fs/namespace.c b/fs/namespace.c
index 3b601f115b6c..fce91c447fab 100644
--- a/fs/namespace.c
+++ b/fs/namespace.c
@@ -1420,7 +1420,7 @@ static void namespace_unlock(void)
 	if (likely(hlist_empty(&head)))
 		return;

-	synchronize_rcu();
+	synchronize_rcu_expedited();

 	group_pin_kill(&head);
 }
-- 
2.14.0.rc0.dirty

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