linux-kernel - Re: apparmor: global buffers spin lock may get contended

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

Date:   Sun, 15 Aug 2021 02:47:28 -0700
From:   John Johansen <john.johansen@...onical.com>
To:     Sergey Senozhatsky <senozhatsky@...omium.org>,
        Sebastian Andrzej Siewior <bigeasy@...utronix.de>
Cc:     Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
        Tomasz Figa <tfiga@...omium.org>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-security-module@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: apparmor: global buffers spin lock may get contended

On 7/13/21 6:19 AM, Sergey Senozhatsky wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> We've notices that apparmor has switched from using per-CPU buffer pool
> and per-CPU spin_lock to a global spin_lock in df323337e507a0009d3db1ea.
> 
> This seems to be causing some contention on our build machines (with
> quite a bit of cores). Because that global spin lock is a part of the
> stat() sys call (and perhaps some other)
> 
> E.g.
> 
> -    9.29%     0.00%  clang++          [kernel.vmlinux]                        
>    - 9.28% entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe                                      
>       - 8.98% do_syscall_64                                                    
>          - 7.43% __do_sys_newlstat                                            
>             - 7.43% vfs_statx                                                  
>                - 7.18% security_inode_getattr                                  
>                   - 7.15% apparmor_inode_getattr                              
>                      - aa_path_perm                                            
>                         - 3.53% aa_get_buffer                                  
>                            - 3.47% _raw_spin_lock                              
>                                 3.44% native_queued_spin_lock_slowpath        
>                         - 3.49% aa_put_buffer.part.0                          
>                            - 3.45% _raw_spin_lock                              
>                                 3.43% native_queued_spin_lock_slowpath   
> 
> Can we fix this contention?
> 

sorry this got filtered to a wrong mailbox. Yes this is something that can
be improved, and was a concern when the switch was made from per-CPU buffers
to the global pool.

We can look into doing a hybrid approach where we can per cpu cache a buffer
from the global pool. The trick will be coming up with when the cached buffer
can be returned so we don't run into the problems that lead to
df323337e507a0009d3db1ea