Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] restartable sequences v2: fast user-space percpu critical sections

Andy Lutomirski
2016-04-06T15:56:58Z

On Oct 27, 2015 4:56 PM, "Paul Turner" <commonly@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This is an update to the previously posted series at:
> https://lkml.org/lkml/2015/6/24/665
>
> Dave Watson has posted a similar follow-up which allows additional critical
> regions to be registered as well as single-step support at:
> https://lkml.org/lkml/2015/10/22/588
>
> This series is a new approach which introduces an alternate ABI that does not
> depend on open-coded assembly nor a central 'repository' of rseq sequences.
> Sequences may now be inlined and the preparatory[*] work for the sequence can
> be written in a higher level language.
>
> This new ABI has also been written to support debugger interaction in a way
> that the previous ABI could not.
>
> [*] A sequence essentially has 3 steps:
> 1) Determine which cpu the sequence is being run on
> 2) Preparatory work specific to the state read in 1)
> 3) A single commit instruction which finalizes any state updates.

After much delay, I have a few questions:

What are the useful commit operations? IIUC they probably need to be
single instructions, which makes it sound like they're all either RMW
or store operations. I think that plain stores are sufficient to
emulate RMW since (1) if the value changes out from under you, you'll
abort, and (2) most CPUs don't have single instruction RMW anyway.

We could probably speed up commits and make the code a bit more
obvious by feeding the kernel a pointer to a descriptor instead of
feeding it individual values. For example, the descriptor could be:

struct commit_descriptor {
unsigned long done_instruction;
unsigned long failure_instruction;
// maybe cpu and event number are in here
// maybe *pointer* to event number is in here
};

Is your scheme safe against signals that are delivered during commit?
Would the signal context need to save and zero the commit state?

I still want to see if we can get away from the kernel-managed event
counter. Would the following work:

start_sequence:
read current CPU number
change event counter
re-read current CPU number [1]

commit:
tell kernel we're committing
re-check event counter and CPU number
do the commit instruction
tell kernel we're done committing

[1] avoids a memory ordering issue if we migrate before changing the
event counter

The kernel forces an abort if, on resume from any kernel entry, the
CPU number or event counter is wrong.

If this worked, then it would be inherently debuggable, since the only
way that it would abort in a single-threaded situation is if it
migrated during commit.

--Andy

>
> We require a single instruction for (3) so that if it is interrupted in any
> way, we can proceed from (1) once more [or potentially bail].
>
> This new ABI can be described as:
> Progress is ordered as follows:
> *0. Userspace stores current event+cpu counter values
> 1. Userspace loads the rip to move to at failure into cx
> 2. Userspace loads the rip of the instruction following
> the critical section into a registered TLS address.
> 3. Userspace loads the values read at [0] into a known
> location.
> 4. Userspace tests to see whether the current event and
> cpu counter values match those stored at 0. Manually
> jumping to the address from [1] in the case of a
> mismatch.
>
> Note that if we are preempted or otherwise interrupted
> then the kernel can also now perform this comparison
> and conditionally jump us to [1].
> 5. Our final instruction before [2] is then our commit.
> The critical section is self-terminating. [2] must
> also be cleared at this point.
>
> For x86_64:
> [3] uses rdx to represent cpu and event counter as a
> single 64-bit value.
>
> For i386:
> [3] uses ax for cpu and dx for the event_counter.
>
> Both:
> Instruction after commit: rseq_state->post_commit_instr
> Current event and cpu state: rseq_state->event_and_cpu
>
> Exactly, for x86_64 this looks like:
> movq <failed>, rcx [1]
> movq $1f, <commit_instr> [2]
> cmpq <start value>, <current value> [3] (start is in rcx)
> jnz <failed> (4)
> movq <to_write>, (<target>) (5)
> 1: movq $0, <commit_instr>
>
> There has been some related discussion, which I am supportive of, in which
> we use fs/gs instead of TLS. This maps naturally to the above and removes
> the current requirement for per-thread initialization (this is a good thing!).
>
> On debugger interactions:
>
> There are some nice properties about this new style of API which allow it to
> actually support safe interactions with a debugger:
> a) The event counter is a per-cpu value. This means that we can not advance
> it if no threads from the same process execute on that cpu. This
> naturally allows basic single step support with thread-isolation.
> b) Single-step can be augmented to evalute the ABI without incrementing the
> event count.
> c) A debugger can also be augmented to evaluate this ABI and push restarts
> on the kernel's behalf.
>
> This is also compatible with David's approach of not single stepping between
> 2-4 above. However, I think these are ultimately a little stronger since true
> single-stepping and breakpoint support would be available. Which would be
> nice to allow actual debugging of sequences.
>
> (Note that I haven't bothered implementing these in the current patchset as we
> are still winnowing down on the ABI and they just add complexity. It's
> important to note that they are possible however.)
>
> Thanks,
>
> - Paul
>
>