linux-kernel - [PATCH] lockref: Limit number of cmpxchg loop retries

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Message-Id: <20190605134849.28108-1-jglauber@marvell.com>
Date:   Wed,  5 Jun 2019 15:48:49 +0200
From:   Jan Glauber <jglauber@...ium.com>
To:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Cc:     Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@....com>,
        Will Deacon <will.deacon@....com>,
        linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Jayachandran Chandrasekharan Nair <jnair@...vell.com>,
        Jan Glauber <jglauber@...vell.com>
Subject: [PATCH] lockref: Limit number of cmpxchg loop retries

The lockref cmpxchg loop is unbound as long as the spinlock is not
taken. Depending on the hardware implementation of compare-and-swap
a high number of loop retries might happen.

Add an upper bound to the loop to force the fallback to spinlocks
after some time. A retry value of 100 should not impact any hardware
that does not have this issue.

With the retry limit the performance of an open-close testcase
improved between 60-70% on ThunderX2.

Suggested-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Jan Glauber <jglauber@...vell.com>
---
 lib/lockref.c | 3 +++
 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+)

diff --git a/lib/lockref.c b/lib/lockref.c
index 3d468b53d4c9..5b34bbd3eba8 100644
--- a/lib/lockref.c
+++ b/lib/lockref.c
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@
  * failure case.
  */
 #define CMPXCHG_LOOP(CODE, SUCCESS) do {					\
+	int retry = 100;							\
 	struct lockref old;							\
 	BUILD_BUG_ON(sizeof(old) != 8);						\
 	old.lock_count = READ_ONCE(lockref->lock_count);			\
@@ -21,6 +22,8 @@
 		if (likely(old.lock_count == prev.lock_count)) {		\
 			SUCCESS;						\
 		}								\
+		if (!--retry)							\
+			break;							\
 		cpu_relax();							\
 	}									\
 } while (0)
-- 
2.21.0