From: Nick Piggin <nickpiggin@yahoo.com.au>
To: Linux Memory Management <linux-mm@kvack.org>,
linux-kernel <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: New lockless pagecache
Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2005 16:25:53 +1000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <4317F071.1070403@yahoo.com.au> (raw)
There were a number of problems with the old lockless pagecache:
- page_count of free pages was unstable, which meant an extra atomic
operation when allocating a new page (had to use get_page instead
of set_page_count).
- This meant a new page flag PG_free had to be introduced.
- Also needed a spin loop and memory barriers added to the page
allocator to prevent a free page with a speculative reference on
it from being allocated.
- This introduced the requirement that interrupts be disabled in
page_cache_get_speculative to prevent deadlock, which was very
disheartening.
- Too complex.
- To cap it off, there was an "unsolvable" race whereby a second
page_cache_get_speculative would not be able to detect it had
picked up a free page, and try to free it again.
The elegant solution was right under my nose the whole time.
I introduced an atomic_cmpxchg and use that to ensure we don't
touch ->_count of a free page. This solves all the above problems.
I think this is getting pretty stable. No guarantees of course,
but it would be great if anyone gave it a test.
--
SUSE Labs, Novell Inc.
Send instant messages to your online friends http://au.messenger.yahoo.com
WARNING: multiple messages have this Message-ID (diff)
From: Nick Piggin <nickpiggin@yahoo.com.au>
To: Linux Memory Management <linux-mm@kvack.org>,
linux-kernel <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: New lockless pagecache
Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2005 16:25:53 +1000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <4317F071.1070403@yahoo.com.au> (raw)
There were a number of problems with the old lockless pagecache:
- page_count of free pages was unstable, which meant an extra atomic
operation when allocating a new page (had to use get_page instead
of set_page_count).
- This meant a new page flag PG_free had to be introduced.
- Also needed a spin loop and memory barriers added to the page
allocator to prevent a free page with a speculative reference on
it from being allocated.
- This introduced the requirement that interrupts be disabled in
page_cache_get_speculative to prevent deadlock, which was very
disheartening.
- Too complex.
- To cap it off, there was an "unsolvable" race whereby a second
page_cache_get_speculative would not be able to detect it had
picked up a free page, and try to free it again.
The elegant solution was right under my nose the whole time.
I introduced an atomic_cmpxchg and use that to ensure we don't
touch ->_count of a free page. This solves all the above problems.
I think this is getting pretty stable. No guarantees of course,
but it would be great if anyone gave it a test.
--
SUSE Labs, Novell Inc.
Send instant messages to your online friends http://au.messenger.yahoo.com
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next reply other threads:[~2005-09-02 6:25 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 56+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2005-09-02 6:25 Nick Piggin [this message]
2005-09-02 6:25 ` New lockless pagecache Nick Piggin
2005-09-02 6:28 ` [PATCH 2.6.13] lockless pagecache 1/7 Nick Piggin
2005-09-02 6:29 ` [PATCH 2.6.13] lockless pagecache 2/7 Nick Piggin
2005-09-02 6:30 ` [PATCH 2.6.13] lockless pagecache 3/7 Nick Piggin
2005-09-02 6:30 ` [PATCH 2.6.13] lockless pagecache 4/7 Nick Piggin
2005-09-02 6:31 ` [PATCH 2.6.13] lockless pagecache 5/7 Nick Piggin
2005-09-02 6:32 ` [PATCH 2.6.13] lockless pagecache 6/7 Nick Piggin
2005-09-02 6:32 ` [PATCH 2.6.13] lockless pagecache 7/7 Nick Piggin
2005-09-09 13:00 ` Christoph Lameter
2005-09-09 13:00 ` Christoph Lameter
2005-09-09 15:23 ` Nick Piggin
2005-09-09 15:23 ` Nick Piggin
2005-09-09 5:36 ` [PATCH 2.6.13] lockless pagecache 5/7 Christoph Lameter
2005-09-09 5:36 ` Christoph Lameter
2005-09-09 6:22 ` Nick Piggin
2005-09-09 6:22 ` Nick Piggin
2005-09-02 13:08 ` [PATCH 2.6.13] lockless pagecache 2/7 Alan Cox
2005-09-02 13:08 ` Alan Cox
2005-09-02 20:41 ` Andi Kleen
2005-09-02 20:41 ` Andi Kleen
2005-09-02 21:12 ` David S. Miller
2005-09-02 21:12 ` David S. Miller, Andi Kleen
2005-09-02 21:43 ` Nick Piggin
2005-09-02 21:43 ` Nick Piggin
2005-09-02 21:22 ` Nick Piggin
2005-09-02 21:22 ` Nick Piggin
2005-09-02 21:31 ` David S. Miller
2005-09-02 21:31 ` David S. Miller, Nick Piggin
2005-09-02 21:47 ` Nick Piggin
2005-09-02 21:47 ` Nick Piggin
2005-09-02 21:57 ` David S. Miller
2005-09-02 21:57 ` David S. Miller, Nick Piggin
2005-09-02 23:57 ` Alan Cox
2005-09-02 23:57 ` Alan Cox
2005-09-03 1:40 ` Nick Piggin
2005-09-03 1:40 ` Nick Piggin
2005-09-03 17:31 ` Alan Cox
2005-09-03 17:31 ` Alan Cox
2005-09-04 1:01 ` Nick Piggin
2005-09-04 1:01 ` Nick Piggin
2005-09-04 8:20 ` Alan Cox
2005-09-04 8:20 ` Alan Cox
2005-09-06 1:03 ` Nick Piggin
2005-09-06 1:03 ` Nick Piggin
2005-09-02 18:26 ` Christoph Lameter
2005-09-02 18:26 ` Christoph Lameter
2005-09-02 21:26 ` Nick Piggin
2005-09-02 21:26 ` Nick Piggin
2005-09-03 1:33 ` Christoph Lameter
2005-09-03 1:33 ` Christoph Lameter
2005-09-02 6:45 ` New lockless pagecache Nick Piggin
2005-09-02 6:45 ` Nick Piggin
2005-09-15 19:50 ` Alok kataria
2005-09-16 3:12 ` Nick Piggin
2005-09-16 3:12 ` Nick Piggin
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