netdev - RE: [PATCH net-next] r8169: Add 64bit statistics

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Message-ID: <AE90C24D6B3A694183C094C60CF0A2F6D8AECB@saturn3.aculab.com>
Date:	Thu, 17 Nov 2011 14:01:19 -0000
From:	"David Laight" <David.Laight@...LAB.COM>
To:	"Eric Dumazet" <eric.dumazet@...il.com>
Cc:	"Junchang Wang" <junchangwang@...il.com>,
	"Stephen Hemminger" <stephen.hemminger@...tta.com>,
	<netdev@...r.kernel.org>, <romieu@...zoreil.com>,
	"nic swsd" <nic_swsd@...ltek.com>
Subject: RE: [PATCH net-next] r8169: Add 64bit statistics

> From: Eric Dumazet [mailto:eric.dumazet@...il.com] 
> Le jeudi 17 novembre 2011 à 11:13 +0000, David Laight a écrit :
> > The 64bit stats update sequence used to get valid
> > counts on 32bit systems (that can't do locked 64bit
> > memory access) seems to be:
> > 
> > >     u64_stats_update_begin(&sky2->tx_stats.syncp);
> > >     ++sky2->tx_stats.packets;
> > >     sky2->tx_stats.bytes += skb->len;
> > >     u64_stats_update_end(&sky2->tx_stats.syncp);
> > 
> > I'm not sure what the begin/end markers do, but
> > they need to hold off the readers during updates
> > and the writers during reads - this is probably
> > expensive on the update path.
> > 
> > A thought that might work is for the writer to
> > write the middle bits of the 64 bit walue to
> > another location, eg:
> >        count = sky2->tx_stats.bytes + skb->len;
> >        sky2->tx_stats.bytes = count;
> >        sky2->tx_stats.bytes_check = count >> 16;
> > The reader then loops until the two value are
> > consistent.
> > 
> > I think this doesn't even require a memory barrier
> > in the ISR since the order of the reads an writes
> > doesn't matter at all.
> > 
> > 	David
> > 
> > 
> 
> Oh well...
> 
> Before claiming all this, you really should read 
> include/linux/u64_stats_sync.h
> 
> This should answer all your questions.

Ah yes ...

Both u64_stats_update_begin & _end increment a numeric field
with an appropriate memory barrier. So the 'update' path
has two extra read-modify-write sequences (possibly the
2nd read can be optimised out), and two smp_wmb() that may
introduce bus delays.

Would be fine if it were guaranteed to work!
Consider the following sequence of events:
       u64_stats_update_begin()
       calculate 'count+1'
                                read_seqcount_begin()
                                read count_hi
       write count_lo
                                read count_lo
       write count_hi
                                read_seqcount_retry()
       ... update other counters ...
       u64_stats_update_end()
The reader gets an invalid value since it reads the same
'sequence' both times.

Could be fixed by using '|= 1' in update_begin and
looping on odd values in read_seqcount_begin().

	David

                      


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