At 21:03 12/06/02, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
>Followup to: <5.1.0.14.2.20020612192802.045b08c0@pop.cus.cam.ac.uk>
>By author: Anton Altaparmakov <aia21@cantab.net>
>In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
> >
> > >2) If you need to do decompression on a cpu you check the array entry
> > > for that CPU and if is NULL you vmalloc() the decompression
> buffers once
> > > for that CPU. This avoid vmalloc() overhead for each read.
> >
> > The vmalloc() sleeps and by the time you get control back you are
> executing
> > on a different CPU. Ooops. The only valid way of treating per-cpu data is:
> >
> > - disable preemption
> > - get the cpu number = START OF CRITICAL SECTION: no sleep/schedule allowed
> > - do work using the cpu number
> > - reenable preemption = END OF CRITICAL SECTION
>
>Actually, that doesn't matter, because it's a quickly convergent
>operation.
>
>Basically, once you've been invoked on a particular CPU once, you are
>pretty much guaranteed to get invoked on that same CPU again, so the
>fact that you may end up using a different buffer post-allocation is
>not an issue.
>
>Have an array and a semaphore called here allocation_semaphore:
I have a semaphore serializing allocation already. (-:
>/* PSEUDO-CODE */
>
>while ( 1 ) {
> disable_preemption();
> cpu = current_cpu();
> if ( decompression_buffers[cpu] ) {
> do_decompression(decompression_buffers[cpu]);
> enable_preemption();
> break; /* DONE, EXIT LOOP */
> } else {
> enable_preemption();
> down_sem(allocation_semaphore);
> /* Avoid race condition here */
> if ( !decompression_buffers[cpu] )
> decompression_buffers[cpu] = vmalloc(BUFFER_SIZE);
> up_sem(allocation_semaphore);
> }
>}
>
>Note that there is no requirement that we're still on cpu "cpu" when
>we allocate the buffer. Furthermore, if we fail, we just loop right
>back to the top.
What is the point though? Why not just:
if (!unlikely(decompression_buffers)) {
down_sem();
allocate_decompression_buffers();
up_sem();
}
And be done with it?
I don't see any justification for the increased complexity...
Best regards,
Anton
-- "I've not lost my mind. It's backed up on tape somewhere." - Unknown -- Anton Altaparmakov <aia21 at cantab.net> (replace at with @) Linux NTFS Maintainer / IRC: #ntfs on irc.openprojects.net WWW: http://linux-ntfs.sf.net/ & http://www-stu.christs.cam.ac.uk/~aia21/- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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