linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v15 3/6] locking/qspinlock: Introduce CNA into the slow path of qspinlock

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Date:   Fri, 4 Aug 2023 10:25:31 +0200
From:   Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>
To:     Guo Ren <guoren@...nel.org>
Cc:     Alex Kogan <alex.kogan@...cle.com>, linux@...linux.org.uk,
        mingo@...hat.com, will.deacon@....com, arnd@...db.de,
        longman@...hat.com, linux-arch@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        tglx@...utronix.de, bp@...en8.de, hpa@...or.com, x86@...nel.org,
        guohanjun@...wei.com, jglauber@...vell.com,
        steven.sistare@...cle.com, daniel.m.jordan@...cle.com,
        dave.dice@...cle.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH v15 3/6] locking/qspinlock: Introduce CNA into the slow
 path of qspinlock

On Fri, Aug 04, 2023 at 09:33:48AM +0800, Guo Ren wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 3, 2023 at 7:57 PM Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org> wrote:

> > CNA should only show a benefit when there is strong inter-node
> > contention, and in that case it is typically best to fix the kernel side
> > locking.
> >
> > Hence the question as to what lock prompted you to look at this.
> I met the long lock queue situation when the hardware gave an overly
> aggressive store queue merge buffer delay mechanism. See:
> https://lore.kernel.org/linux-riscv/20230802164701.192791-8-guoren@kernel.org/

*groan*, so you're using it to work around 'broken' hardware :-(

Wouldn't that hardware have horrifically bad lock throughput anyway?
Everybody would end up waiting on that store buffer delay.

> This also let me consider improving the efficiency of the long lock
> queue release. For example, if the queue is like this:
> 
> (Node0 cpu0) -> (Node1 cpu64) -> (Node0 cpu1) -> (Node1 cpu65) ->
> (Node0 cpu2) -> (Node1 cpu66) -> ...
> 
> Then every mcs_unlock would cause a cross-NUMA transaction. But if we
> could make the queue like this:

See, this is where the ARM64 WFE would come in handy; I don't suppose
RISC-V has anything like that?

Also, by the time you have 6 waiters, I'd say the lock is terribly
contended and you should look at improving the lockinh scheme.