linux-kernel - Re: [RESEND RFC PATCH 0/3] Provide fast access to thread specific data

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Date:   Thu, 9 Sep 2021 10:42:43 -0700
From:   Andy Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org>
To:     Prakash Sangappa <prakash.sangappa@...cle.com>
Cc:     Linux API <linux-api@...r.kernel.org>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [RESEND RFC PATCH 0/3] Provide fast access to thread specific data

On Wed, Sep 8, 2021 at 5:02 PM Prakash Sangappa
<prakash.sangappa@...cle.com> wrote:
>
> Resending RFC. This patchset is not final. I am looking for feedback on
> this proposal to share thread specific data for us in latency sensitive
> codepath.
>
> (patchset based on v5.14-rc7)
>
> Cover letter previously sent:
> ----------------------------
>
> Some applications, like a Databases require reading thread specific stats
> frequently from the kernel in latency sensitive codepath. The overhead of
> reading stats from kernel using system call affects performance.
> One use case is reading thread's scheduler stats from /proc schedstat file
> (/proc/pid/schedstat) to collect time spent by a thread executing on the
> cpu(sum_exec_runtime), time blocked waiting on runq(run_delay). These
> scheduler stats, read several times per transaction in latency-sensitive
> codepath, are used to measure time taken by DB operations.
>
> This patch proposes to introduce a mechanism for kernel to share thread
> stats thru a per thread shared structure shared between userspace and
> kernel. The per thread shared structure is allocated on a page shared
> mapped between user space and kernel, which will provide a way for fast
> communication between user and kernel. Kernel publishes stats in this
> shared structure. Application thread can read from it in user space
> without requiring system calls.


Can these use cases be addressed by creating a perf event
(perf_event_open) and mmapping it?