Re: [RFC 0/2] srcu: Remove pre-flip memory barrier

Mathieu Desnoyers
2022-12-21T03:46:45Z

On 2022-12-20 19:07, Frederic Weisbecker wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 20, 2022 at 12:00:58PM -0500, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
>> On 2022-12-19 20:04, Joel Fernandes wrote:
>> The main benefit I expect is improved performance of the grace period
>> implementation in common cases where there are few or no readers present,
>> especially on machines with many cpus.
>>
>> It allows scanning both periods (0/1) for each cpu within the same pass,
>> therefore loading both period's unlock counters sitting in the same cache
>> line at once (improved locality), and then loading both period's lock
>> counters, also sitting in the same cache line.
>>
>> It also allows skipping the period flip entirely if there are no readers
>> present, which is an -arguably- tiny performance improvement as well.
>
> I would indeed expect performance improvement if there are no readers in the
> active period/idx but if there are, it's a performance penalty due to the extra
> scans.
>
> So my mean questions are:
>
> * Is the no-present-readers the most likely case? I guess it depends on the ssp.
>
> * Does the SRCU update side deserve to be optimized with added code (because
> we are not debating about removing the flip, rather about adding a fast-path
> and keep the flip as a slow-path)
>
> * The SRCU machinery is already quite complicated. Look how we little things lock
> ourselves in for days doing our exegesis of SRCU state machine. And halfway
> through it we are still debating some ordering. Is it worth adding a new path there?

I'm not arguing for making things more complex unless there are good
reasons to do so. However I think we badly need to improve the
documentation of the memory barriers in SRCU, because the claimed
barrier pairing is odd.

Thanks,

Mathieu

--
Mathieu Desnoyers
EfficiOS Inc.