Re: [PATCH v2 1/1] net/mlx5: Added cond_resched() to crdump collection

Alexander Lobakin
2024-08-30T13:09:41Z

From: Mohamed Khalfella <mkhalfella@purestorage.com>
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2024 15:38:56 -0600

> Collecting crdump involves reading vsc registers from pci config space
> of mlx device, which can take long time to complete. This might result
> in starving other threads waiting to run on the cpu.
>
> Numbers I got from testing ConnectX-5 Ex MCX516A-CDAT in the lab:
>
> - mlx5_vsc_gw_read_block_fast() was called with length = 1310716.
> - mlx5_vsc_gw_read_fast() reads 4 bytes at a time. It was not used to
> read the entire 1310716 bytes. It was called 53813 times because
> there are jumps in read_addr.
> - On average mlx5_vsc_gw_read_fast() took 35284.4ns.
> - In total mlx5_vsc_wait_on_flag() called vsc_read() 54707 times.
> The average time for each call was 17548.3ns. In some instances
> vsc_read() was called more than one time when the flag was not set.
> As expected the thread released the cpu after 16 iterations in
> mlx5_vsc_wait_on_flag().
> - Total time to read crdump was 35284.4ns * 53813 ~= 1.898s.
>
> It was seen in the field that crdump can take more than 5 seconds to
> complete. During that time mlx5_vsc_wait_on_flag() did not release the
> cpu because it did not complete 16 iterations. It is believed that pci
> config reads were slow. This change adds conditional reschedule call
> every 128 register read to release the cpu if needed.
>
> Reviewed-by: Yuanyuan Zhong <yzhong@purestorage.com>
> Signed-off-by: Mohamed Khalfella <mkhalfella@purestorage.com>
> ---
> drivers/net/ethernet/mellanox/mlx5/core/lib/pci_vsc.c | 4 ++++
> 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+)
>
> diff --git a/drivers/net/ethernet/mellanox/mlx5/core/lib/pci_vsc.c b/drivers/net/ethernet/mellanox/mlx5/core/lib/pci_vsc.c
> index 6b774e0c2766..bc6c38a68702 100644
> --- a/drivers/net/ethernet/mellanox/mlx5/core/lib/pci_vsc.c
> +++ b/drivers/net/ethernet/mellanox/mlx5/core/lib/pci_vsc.c
> @@ -269,6 +269,7 @@ int mlx5_vsc_gw_read_block_fast(struct mlx5_core_dev *dev, u32 *data,
> {
> unsigned int next_read_addr = 0;
> unsigned int read_addr = 0;
> + unsigned int count = 0;
>
> while (read_addr < length) {
> if (mlx5_vsc_gw_read_fast(dev, read_addr, &next_read_addr,
> @@ -276,6 +277,9 @@ int mlx5_vsc_gw_read_block_fast(struct mlx5_core_dev *dev, u32 *data,
> return read_addr;
>
> read_addr = next_read_addr;
> + /* Yield the cpu every 128 register read */
> + if ((++count & 0x7f) == 0)
> + cond_resched();

Why & 0x7f, could it be written more clearly?

if (++count == 128) {
cond_resched();
count = 0;
}

Also, I'd make this open-coded value a #define somewhere at the
beginning of the file with a comment with a short explanation.

BTW, why 128? Not 64, not 256 etc? You just picked it, I don't see any
explanation in the commitmsg or here in the code why exactly 128. Have
you tried different values?

> }
> return length;
> }

Thanks,
Olek