From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1752693AbbGAAmc (ORCPT ); Tue, 30 Jun 2015 20:42:32 -0400 Received: from relay4-d.mail.gandi.net ([217.70.183.196]:39955 "EHLO relay4-d.mail.gandi.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751620AbbGAAmY (ORCPT ); Tue, 30 Jun 2015 20:42:24 -0400 X-Originating-IP: 50.43.43.179 Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 17:42:14 -0700 From: Josh Triplett To: "Paul E. McKenney" Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, mingo@kernel.org, laijs@cn.fujitsu.com, dipankar@in.ibm.com, akpm@linux-foundation.org, mathieu.desnoyers@efficios.com, tglx@linutronix.de, peterz@infradead.org, rostedt@goodmis.org, dhowells@redhat.com, edumazet@google.com, dvhart@linux.intel.com, fweisbec@gmail.com, oleg@redhat.com, bobby.prani@gmail.com Subject: Re: [PATCH RFC tip/core/rcu 0/5] Expedited grace periods encouraging normal ones Message-ID: <20150701004214.GA30853@x> References: <20150630214805.GA7795@linux.vnet.ibm.com> <20150630220014.GA10916@cloud> <20150630221224.GQ3717@linux.vnet.ibm.com> <20150630234633.GA11450@cloud> <20150701001558.GU3717@linux.vnet.ibm.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20150701001558.GU3717@linux.vnet.ibm.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.23 (2014-03-12) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 05:15:58PM -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote: > On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 04:46:33PM -0700, josh@joshtriplett.org wrote: > > On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 03:12:24PM -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote: > > > On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 03:00:15PM -0700, josh@joshtriplett.org wrote: > > > > On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 02:48:05PM -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote: > > > > > Hello! > > > > > > > > > > This series contains some highly experimental patches that allow normal > > > > > grace periods to take advantage of the work done by concurrent expedited > > > > > grace periods. This can reduce the overhead incurred by normal grace > > > > > periods by eliminating the need for force-quiescent-state scans that > > > > > would otherwise have happened after the expedited grace period completed. > > > > > It is not clear whether this is a useful tradeoff. Nevertheless, this > > > > > series contains the following patches: > > > > > > > > While it makes sense to avoid unnecessarily delaying a normal grace > > > > period if the expedited machinery has provided the necessary delay, I'm > > > > also *deeply* concerned that this will create a new class of > > > > nondeterministic performance issues. Something that uses RCU may > > > > perform badly due to grace period latency, but then suddenly start > > > > performing well because an unrelated task starts hammering expedited > > > > grace periods. This seems particularly likely during boot, for > > > > instance, where RCU grace periods can be a significant component of boot > > > > time (when you're trying to boot to userspace in small fractions of a > > > > second). > > > > > > I will take that as another vote against. And for a reason that I had > > > not yet come up with, so good show! ;-) > > > > Consider it a fairly weak concern against. Increasing performance seems > > like a good thing in general; I just don't relish the future "feels less > > responsive" bug reports that take a long time to track down and turn out > > to be "this completely unrelated driver was loaded and started using > > expedited grace periods". > > From what I can see, this one needs a good reason to go in, as opposed > to a good reason to stay out. > > > Then again, perhaps the more relevant concern would be why drivers use > > expedited grace periods in the first place. > > Networking uses expedited grace periods when RTNL is held to reduce > contention on that lock. Wait, what? Why is anything using traditional (non-S) RCU while *any* lock is held? > Several other places have used it to minimize > user-visible grace-period slowdown. But there are probably places that > would be better served doing something different. That is after all > the common case for most synchronization primitives. ;-) Sounds likely. :) - Josh Triplett