Re: [PATCH v3 00/35] bitops: add atomic find_bit() operations

[Yury Norov <yury.norov@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Dec 11, 2023 at 06:27:14PM -0800, Yury Norov wrote:
> Add helpers around test_and_{set,clear}_bit() that allow to search for
> clear or set bits and flip them atomically.
> 
> The target patterns may look like this:
> 
> 	for (idx = 0; idx < nbits; idx++)
> 		if (test_and_clear_bit(idx, bitmap))
> 			do_something(idx);
> 
> Or like this:
> 
> 	do {
> 		bit = find_first_bit(bitmap, nbits);
> 		if (bit >= nbits)
> 			return nbits;
> 	} while (!test_and_clear_bit(bit, bitmap));
> 	return bit;
> 
> In both cases, the opencoded loop may be converted to a single function
> or iterator call. Correspondingly:
> 
> 	for_each_test_and_clear_bit(idx, bitmap, nbits)
> 		do_something(idx);
> 
> Or:
> 	return find_and_clear_bit(bitmap, nbits);
> 
> Obviously, the less routine code people have to write themself, the
> less probability to make a mistake.
> 
> Those are not only handy helpers but also resolve a non-trivial
> issue of using non-atomic find_bit() together with atomic
> test_and_{set,clear)_bit().
> 
> The trick is that find_bit() implies that the bitmap is a regular
> non-volatile piece of memory, and compiler is allowed to use such
> optimization techniques like re-fetching memory instead of caching it.
> 
> For example, find_first_bit() is implemented like this:
> 
>       for (idx = 0; idx * BITS_PER_LONG < sz; idx++) {
>               val = addr[idx];
>               if (val) {
>                       sz = min(idx * BITS_PER_LONG + __ffs(val), sz);
>                       break;
>               }
>       }
> 
> On register-memory architectures, like x86, compiler may decide to
> access memory twice - first time to compare against 0, and second time
> to fetch its value to pass it to __ffs().
> 
> When running find_first_bit() on volatile memory, the memory may get
> changed in-between, and for instance, it may lead to passing 0 to
> __ffs(), which is undefined. This is a potentially dangerous call.
> 
> find_and_clear_bit() as a wrapper around test_and_clear_bit()
> naturally treats underlying bitmap as a volatile memory and prevents
> compiler from such optimizations.
> 
> Now that KCSAN is catching exactly this type of situations and warns on
> undercover memory modifications. We can use it to reveal improper usage
> of find_bit(), and convert it to atomic find_and_*_bit() as appropriate.
> 
> In some cases concurrent operations with plain find_bit() are acceptable.
> For example:
> 
>  - two threads running find_*_bit(): safe wrt ffs(0) and returns correct
>    value, because underlying bitmap is unchanged;
>  - find_next_bit() in parallel with set or clear_bit(), when modifying
>    a bit prior to the start bit to search: safe and correct;
>  - find_first_bit() in parallel with set_bit(): safe, but may return wrong
>    bit number;
>  - find_first_zero_bit() in parallel with clear_bit(): same as above.
> 
> In last 2 cases find_bit() may not return a correct bit number, but
> it may be OK if caller requires any (not exactly the first) set or clear
> bit, correspondingly.
> 
> In such cases, KCSAN may be safely silenced with data_race(). But in most
> cases where KCSAN detects concurrency people should carefully review their
> code and likely protect critical sections or switch to atomic
> find_and_bit(), as appropriate.
> 
> The 1st patch of the series adds the following atomic primitives:
> 
> 	find_and_set_bit(addr, nbits);
> 	find_and_set_next_bit(addr, nbits, start);
> 	...
> 
> Here find_and_{set,clear} part refers to the corresponding
> test_and_{set,clear}_bit function. Suffixes like _wrap or _lock
> derive their semantics from corresponding find() or test() functions.
> 
> For brevity, the naming omits the fact that we search for zero bit in
> find_and_set, and correspondingly search for set bit in find_and_clear
> functions.
> 
> The patch also adds iterators with atomic semantics, like
> for_each_test_and_set_bit(). Here, the naming rule is to simply prefix
> corresponding atomic operation with 'for_each'.
> 
> In [1] Jan reported 2% slowdown in a single-thread search test when
> switching find_bit() function to treat bitmaps as volatile arrays. On
> the other hand, kernel robot in the same thread reported +3.7% to the
> performance of will-it-scale.per_thread_ops test.
> 
> Assuming that our compilers are sane and generate better code against
> properly annotated data, the above discrepancy doesn't look weird. When
> running on non-volatile bitmaps, plain find_bit() outperforms atomic
> find_and_bit(), and vice-versa.
> 
> So, all users of find_bit() API, where heavy concurrency is expected,
> are encouraged to switch to atomic find_and_bit() as appropriate.
> 
> The 1st patch of this series adds atomic find_and_bit() API, 2nd adds
> a basic test for new API, and all the following patches spread it over
> the kernel.
> 
> They can be applied separately from each other on per-subsystems basis,
> or I can pull them in bitmap tree, as appropriate.
> 
> [1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/634f5fdf-e236-42cf-be8d-48a581c21660@alu.unizg.hr/T/#m3e7341eb3571753f3acf8fe166f3fb5b2c12e615
 
Thank you all for reviews and comments. Now moving the series to
bitmap-for-next for testing.

Thanks,
Yury