Re: [PATCH 02/10] locking/qspinlock: Remove unbounded cmpxchg loop from locking slowpath

From: Waiman Long
Date: Thu Apr 05 2018 - 17:16:24 EST


On 04/05/2018 12:58 PM, Will Deacon wrote:
> The qspinlock locking slowpath utilises a "pending" bit as a simple form
> of an embedded test-and-set lock that can avoid the overhead of explicit
> queuing in cases where the lock is held but uncontended. This bit is
> managed using a cmpxchg loop which tries to transition the uncontended
> lock word from (0,0,0) -> (0,0,1) or (0,0,1) -> (0,1,1).
>
> Unfortunately, the cmpxchg loop is unbounded and lockers can be starved
> indefinitely if the lock word is seen to oscillate between unlocked
> (0,0,0) and locked (0,0,1). This could happen if concurrent lockers are
> able to take the lock in the cmpxchg loop without queuing and pass it
> around amongst themselves.
>
> This patch fixes the problem by unconditionally setting _Q_PENDING_VAL
> using atomic_fetch_or, and then inspecting the old value to see whether
> we need to spin on the current lock owner, or whether we now effectively
> hold the lock. The tricky scenario is when concurrent lockers end up
> queuing on the lock and the lock becomes available, causing us to see
> a lockword of (n,0,0). With pending now set, simply queuing could lead
> to deadlock as the head of the queue may not have observed the pending
> flag being cleared. Conversely, if the head of the queue did observe
> pending being cleared, then it could transition the lock from (n,0,0) ->
> (0,0,1) meaning that any attempt to "undo" our setting of the pending
> bit could race with a concurrent locker trying to set it.
>
> We handle this race by preserving the pending bit when taking the lock
> after reaching the head of the queue and leaving the tail entry intact
> if we saw pending set, because we know that the tail is going to be
> updated shortly.
>
> Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Will Deacon <will.deacon@xxxxxxx>
> ---
> kernel/locking/qspinlock.c | 80 ++++++++++++++++++++--------------------------
> 1 file changed, 35 insertions(+), 45 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/kernel/locking/qspinlock.c b/kernel/locking/qspinlock.c
> index a192af2fe378..b75361d23ea5 100644
> --- a/kernel/locking/qspinlock.c
> +++ b/kernel/locking/qspinlock.c
> @@ -294,7 +294,7 @@ static __always_inline u32 __pv_wait_head_or_lock(struct qspinlock *lock,
> void queued_spin_lock_slowpath(struct qspinlock *lock, u32 val)
> {
> struct mcs_spinlock *prev, *next, *node;
> - u32 new, old, tail;
> + u32 old, tail;
> int idx;
>
> BUILD_BUG_ON(CONFIG_NR_CPUS >= (1U << _Q_TAIL_CPU_BITS));
> @@ -306,58 +306,48 @@ void queued_spin_lock_slowpath(struct qspinlock *lock, u32 val)
> return;
>
> /*
> + * If we observe any contention; queue.
> + */
> + if (val & ~_Q_LOCKED_MASK)
> + goto queue;
> +
> + /*
> * trylock || pending
> *
> * 0,0,0 -> 0,0,1 ; trylock
> * 0,0,1 -> 0,1,1 ; pending
> */
> - for (;;) {
> + val = atomic_fetch_or_acquire(_Q_PENDING_VAL, &lock->val);
> + if (!(val & ~_Q_LOCKED_MASK)) {
> /*
> - * If we observe any contention; queue.
> + * we're pending, wait for the owner to go away.
> + *
> + * *,1,1 -> *,1,0
> + *
> + * this wait loop must be a load-acquire such that we match the
> + * store-release that clears the locked bit and create lock
> + * sequentiality; this is because not all
> + * clear_pending_set_locked() implementations imply full
> + * barriers.
> */
> - if (val & ~_Q_LOCKED_MASK)
> - goto queue;
> -
> - new = _Q_LOCKED_VAL;
> - if (val == new)
> - new |= _Q_PENDING_VAL;
> -
> + if (val & _Q_LOCKED_MASK)
> + smp_cond_load_acquire(&lock->val.counter,
> + !(VAL & _Q_LOCKED_MASK));
> /*
> - * Acquire semantic is required here as the function may
> - * return immediately if the lock was free.
> + * take ownership and clear the pending bit.
> + *
> + * *,1,0 -> *,0,1
> */
> - old = atomic_cmpxchg_acquire(&lock->val, val, new);
> - if (old == val)
> - break;
> -
> - val = old;
> - }
> -
> - /*
> - * we won the trylock
> - */
> - if (new == _Q_LOCKED_VAL)
> + clear_pending_set_locked(lock);
> return;
> + }
>
> /*
> - * we're pending, wait for the owner to go away.
> - *
> - * *,1,1 -> *,1,0
> - *
> - * this wait loop must be a load-acquire such that we match the
> - * store-release that clears the locked bit and create lock
> - * sequentiality; this is because not all clear_pending_set_locked()
> - * implementations imply full barriers.
> - */
> - smp_cond_load_acquire(&lock->val.counter, !(VAL & _Q_LOCKED_MASK));
> -
> - /*
> - * take ownership and clear the pending bit.
> - *
> - * *,1,0 -> *,0,1
> + * If pending was clear but there are waiters in the queue, then
> + * we need to undo our setting of pending before we queue ourselves.
> */
> - clear_pending_set_locked(lock);
> - return;
> + if (!(val & _Q_PENDING_MASK))
> + atomic_andnot(_Q_PENDING_VAL, &lock->val);
Can we add a clear_pending() helper that will just clear the byte if
_Q_PENDING_BITS == 8? That will eliminate one atomic instruction from
the failure path.

-Longman