linux-kernel - [PATCH tip/core/rcu 03/30] rcuperf: Add comments explaining the high reader overhead

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Date:   Mon, 22 Jun 2020 17:29:46 -0700
From:   paulmck@...nel.org
To:     rcu@...r.kernel.org
Cc:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, kernel-team@...com, mingo@...nel.org,
        jiangshanlai@...il.com, dipankar@...ibm.com,
        akpm@...ux-foundation.org, mathieu.desnoyers@...icios.com,
        josh@...htriplett.org, tglx@...utronix.de, peterz@...radead.org,
        rostedt@...dmis.org, dhowells@...hat.com, edumazet@...gle.com,
        fweisbec@...il.com, oleg@...hat.com, joel@...lfernandes.org,
        "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...nel.org>
Subject: [PATCH tip/core/rcu 03/30] rcuperf: Add comments explaining the high reader overhead

From: "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...nel.org>

This commit adds comments explaining why the readers have otherwise insane
levels of measurement overhead, namely that they are intended as a test
load for update-side performance measurements, not as a straight-up
read-side performance test.

Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@...nel.org>
---
 kernel/rcu/rcuperf.c | 11 +++++++++--
 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/kernel/rcu/rcuperf.c b/kernel/rcu/rcuperf.c
index 246da8f..d906ca9 100644
--- a/kernel/rcu/rcuperf.c
+++ b/kernel/rcu/rcuperf.c
@@ -69,6 +69,11 @@ MODULE_AUTHOR("Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@...ux.ibm.com>");
  *	value specified by nr_cpus for a read-only test.
  *
  * Various other use cases may of course be specified.
+ *
+ * Note that this test's readers are intended only as a test load for
+ * the writers.  The reader performance statistics will be overly
+ * pessimistic due to the per-critical-section interrupt disabling,
+ * test-end checks, and the pair of calls through pointers.
  */
 
 #ifdef MODULE
@@ -309,8 +314,10 @@ static void rcu_perf_wait_shutdown(void)
 }
 
 /*
- * RCU perf reader kthread.  Repeatedly does empty RCU read-side
- * critical section, minimizing update-side interference.
+ * RCU perf reader kthread.  Repeatedly does empty RCU read-side critical
+ * section, minimizing update-side interference.  However, the point of
+ * this test is not to evaluate reader performance, but instead to serve
+ * as a test load for update-side performance testing.
  */
 static int
 rcu_perf_reader(void *arg)
-- 
2.9.5