[PATCH v2 2/3] mutex: Queue mutex spinners with MCS lock to reduce cacheline contention

From: Waiman Long
Date: Mon Apr 15 2013 - 10:38:54 EST

The current mutex spinning code (with MUTEX_SPIN_ON_OWNER option turned
on) allow multiple tasks to spin on a single mutex concurrently. A
potential problem with the current approach is that when the mutex
becomes available, all the spinning tasks will try to acquire the
mutex more or less simultaneously. As a result, there will be a lot of
cacheline bouncing especially on systems with a large number of CPUs.

This patch tries to reduce this kind of contention by putting the
mutex spinners into a queue so that only the first one in the queue
will try to acquire the mutex. This will reduce contention and allow
all the tasks to move forward faster.

The queuing of mutex spinners is done using an MCS lock based
implementation which will further reduce contention on the mutex
cacheline than a similar ticket spinlock based implementation. This
patch will add a new field into the mutex data structure for holding
the MCS lock. This expands the mutex size by 8 bytes for 64-bit system
and 4 bytes for 32-bit system. This overhead will be avoid if the
MUTEX_SPIN_ON_OWNER option is turned off.

The following table shows the jobs per minute (JPM) scalability data
on an 8-node 80-core Westmere box with a 3.7.10 kernel. The numactl
command is used to restrict the running of the fserver workloads to
1/2/4/8 nodes with hyperthreading off.

+-----------------+-----------+-----------+-------------+----------+
| Configuration | Mean JPM | Mean JPM | Mean JPM | % Change |
| | w/o patch | patch 1 | patches 1&2 | 1->1&2 |
+-----------------+------------------------------------------------+
| | User Range 1100 - 2000 |
+-----------------+------------------------------------------------+
| 8 nodes, HT off | 227972 | 227237 | 305043 | +34.2% |
| 4 nodes, HT off | 393503 | 381558 | 394650 | +3.4% |
| 2 nodes, HT off | 334957 | 325240 | 338853 | +4.2% |
| 1 node , HT off | 198141 | 197972 | 198075 | +0.1% |
+-----------------+------------------------------------------------+
| | User Range 200 - 1000 |
+-----------------+------------------------------------------------+
| 8 nodes, HT off | 282325 | 312870 | 332185 | +6.2% |
| 4 nodes, HT off | 390698 | 378279 | 393419 | +4.0% |
| 2 nodes, HT off | 336986 | 326543 | 340260 | +4.2% |
| 1 node , HT off | 197588 | 197622 | 197582 | 0.0% |
+-----------------+-----------+-----------+-------------+----------+

At low user range 10-100, the JPM differences were within +/-1%. So
they are not that interesting.

The fserver workload uses mutex spinning extensively. With just
the mutex change in the first patch, there is no noticeable change
in performance. Rather, there is a slight drop in performance. This
mutex spinning patch more than recovers the lost performance and show
a significant increase of +30% at high user load with the full 8 nodes.
Similar improvements were also seen in a 3.8 kernel.

The table below shows the %time spent by different kernel functions
as reported by perf when running the fserver workload at 1500 users
with all 8 nodes.

+-----------------------+-----------+---------+-------------+
| Function | % time | % time | % time |
| | w/o patch | patch 1 | patches 1&2 |
+-----------------------+-----------+---------+-------------+
| __read_lock_failed | 34.96% | 34.91% | 29.14% |
| __write_lock_failed | 10.14% | 10.68% | 7.51% |
| mutex_spin_on_owner | 3.62% | 3.42% | 2.33% |
| mspin_lock | N/A | N/A | 9.90% |
| __mutex_lock_slowpath | 1.46% | 0.81% | 0.14% |
| _raw_spin_lock | 2.25% | 2.50% | 1.10% |
+-----------------------+-----------+---------+-------------+

The fserver workload for an 8-node system is dominated by the
contention in the read/write lock. Mutex contention also plays a
role. With the first patch only, mutex contention is down (as shown by
the __mutex_lock_slowpath figure) which help a little bit. We saw only
a few percents improvement with that.

By applying patch 2 as well, the single mutex_spin_on_owner figure is
now split out into an additional mspin_lock figure. The time increases
from 3.42% to 11.23%. It shows a great reduction in contention among
the spinners leading to a 30% improvement. The time ratio 9.9/2.33=4.3
indicates that there are on average 4+ spinners waiting in the spin_lock
loop for each spinner in the mutex_spin_on_owner loop. Contention in
other locking functions also go down by quite a lot.

The table below shows the performance change of both patches 1 & 2 over
patch 1 alone in other AIM7 workloads (at 8 nodes, hyperthreading off).

+--------------+---------------+----------------+-----------------+
| Workload | mean % change | mean % change | mean % change |
| | 10-100 users | 200-1000 users | 1100-2000 users |
+--------------+---------------+----------------+-----------------+
| alltests | 0.0% | -0.8% | +0.6% |
| five_sec | -0.3% | +0.8% | +0.8% |
| high_systime | +0.4% | +2.4% | +2.1% |
| new_fserver | +0.1% | +14.1% | +34.2% |
| shared | -0.5% | -0.3% | -0.4% |
| short | -1.7% | -9.8% | -8.3% |
+--------------+---------------+----------------+-----------------+

The short workload is the only one that shows a decline in performance
probably due to the spinner locking and queuing overhead.

Signed-off-by: Waiman Long <Waiman.Long@xxxxxx>
---
include/linux/mutex.h | 3 ++
include/linux/sched.h | 3 ++
kernel/mutex.c | 78 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
kernel/sched/core.c | 24 +++++++++++++--
4 files changed, 104 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/include/linux/mutex.h b/include/linux/mutex.h
index 9121595..433da8a 100644
--- a/include/linux/mutex.h
+++ b/include/linux/mutex.h
@@ -53,6 +53,9 @@ struct mutex {
#if defined(CONFIG_DEBUG_MUTEXES) || defined(CONFIG_SMP)
struct task_struct *owner;
#endif
+#ifdef CONFIG_MUTEX_SPIN_ON_OWNER
+ void *spin_mlock; /* Spinner MCS lock */
+#endif
#ifdef CONFIG_DEBUG_MUTEXES
const char *name;
void *magic;
diff --git a/include/linux/sched.h b/include/linux/sched.h
index d35d2b6..8af6f13 100644
--- a/include/linux/sched.h
+++ b/include/linux/sched.h
@@ -320,7 +320,10 @@ extern signed long schedule_timeout_killable(signed long timeout);
extern signed long schedule_timeout_uninterruptible(signed long timeout);
asmlinkage void schedule(void);
extern void schedule_preempt_disabled(void);
+#ifdef CONFIG_MUTEX_SPIN_ON_OWNER
extern int mutex_spin_on_owner(struct mutex *lock, struct task_struct *owner);
+extern int mutex_can_spin_on_owner(struct mutex *lock);
+#endif

struct nsproxy;
struct user_namespace;
diff --git a/kernel/mutex.c b/kernel/mutex.c
index e3496df..e6a90de 100644
--- a/kernel/mutex.c
+++ b/kernel/mutex.c
@@ -55,6 +55,9 @@ __mutex_init(struct mutex *lock, const char *name, struct lock_class_key *key)
spin_lock_init(&lock->wait_lock);
INIT_LIST_HEAD(&lock->wait_list);
mutex_clear_owner(lock);
+#ifdef CONFIG_MUTEX_SPIN_ON_OWNER
+ lock->spin_mlock = NULL;
+#endif

debug_mutex_init(lock, name, key);
}
@@ -106,6 +109,65 @@ void __sched mutex_lock(struct mutex *lock)
EXPORT_SYMBOL(mutex_lock);
#endif

+#ifdef CONFIG_MUTEX_SPIN_ON_OWNER
+/*
+ * In order to avoid a stampede of mutex spinners from acquiring the mutex
+ * more or less simultaneously, the spinners need to acquire a MCS lock
+ * first before spinning on the owner field.
+ *
+ * We don't inline mspin_lock() so that perf can correctly account for the
+ * time spent in this lock function.
+ */
+typedef struct mspin_node {
+ struct mspin_node *next;
+ int locked; /* 1 if lock acquired */
+} mspin_node_t;
+
+typedef mspin_node_t *mspin_lock_t;
+
+#define MLOCK(mutex) ((mspin_lock_t *)&((mutex)->spin_mlock))
+
+static noinline void mspin_lock(mspin_lock_t *lock, mspin_node_t *node)
+{
+ mspin_node_t *prev;
+
+ /* Init node */
+ node->locked = 0;
+ node->next = NULL;
+
+ prev = xchg(lock, node);
+ if (likely(prev == NULL)) {
+ /* Lock acquired */
+ node->locked = 1;
+ return;
+ }
+ ACCESS_ONCE(prev->next) = node;
+ smp_wmb();
+ /* Wait until the lock holder passes the lock down */
+ while (!ACCESS_ONCE(node->locked))
+ arch_mutex_cpu_relax();
+}
+
+static void mspin_unlock(mspin_lock_t *lock, mspin_node_t *node)
+{
+ mspin_node_t *next = ACCESS_ONCE(node->next);
+
+ if (likely(!next)) {
+ /*
+ * Release the lock by setting it to NULL
+ */
+ if (cmpxchg(lock, node, NULL) == node)
+ return;
+ /* Wait until the next pointer is set */
+ while (!(next = ACCESS_ONCE(node->next)))
+ arch_mutex_cpu_relax();
+ }
+ barrier();
+ ACCESS_ONCE(next->locked) = 1;
+ smp_wmb();
+}
+#endif
+
static __used noinline void __sched __mutex_unlock_slowpath(atomic_t *lock_count);

/**
@@ -169,26 +231,39 @@ __mutex_lock_common(struct mutex *lock, long state, unsigned int subclass,
*
* We can't do this for DEBUG_MUTEXES because that relies on wait_lock
* to serialize everything.
+ *
+ * The mutex spinners are queued up using MCS lock so that only one
+ * spinner can compete for the mutex. However, if mutex spinning isn't
+ * going to happen, there is no point in going through the lock/unlock
+ * overhead.
*/
+ if (!mutex_can_spin_on_owner(lock))
+ goto slowpath;

for (;;) {
struct task_struct *owner;
+ mspin_node_t node;

/*
* If there's an owner, wait for it to either
* release the lock or go to sleep.
*/
+ mspin_lock(MLOCK(lock), &node);
owner = ACCESS_ONCE(lock->owner);
- if (owner && !mutex_spin_on_owner(lock, owner))
+ if (owner && !mutex_spin_on_owner(lock, owner)) {
+ mspin_unlock(MLOCK(lock), &node);
break;
+ }

if ((atomic_read(&lock->count) == 1) &&
(atomic_cmpxchg(&lock->count, 1, 0) == 1)) {
lock_acquired(&lock->dep_map, ip);
mutex_set_owner(lock);
+ mspin_unlock(MLOCK(lock), &node);
preempt_enable();
return 0;
}
+ mspin_unlock(MLOCK(lock), &node);

/*
* When there's no owner, we might have preempted between the
@@ -207,6 +282,7 @@ __mutex_lock_common(struct mutex *lock, long state, unsigned int subclass,
*/
arch_mutex_cpu_relax();
}
+slowpath:
#endif
spin_lock_mutex(&lock->wait_lock, flags);

diff --git a/kernel/sched/core.c b/kernel/sched/core.c
index 7f12624..176e82a 100644
--- a/kernel/sched/core.c
+++ b/kernel/sched/core.c
@@ -3021,9 +3021,6 @@ static inline bool owner_running(struct mutex *lock, struct task_struct *owner)
*/
int mutex_spin_on_owner(struct mutex *lock, struct task_struct *owner)
{
- if (!sched_feat(OWNER_SPIN))
- return 0;
-
rcu_read_lock();
while (owner_running(lock, owner)) {
if (need_resched())
@@ -3040,6 +3037,27 @@ int mutex_spin_on_owner(struct mutex *lock, struct task_struct *owner)
*/
return lock->owner == NULL;
}
+
+/*
+ * Initial check for entering the mutex spinning loop
+ */
+int mutex_can_spin_on_owner(struct mutex *lock)
+{
+ int retval = 1;
+
+ if (!sched_feat(OWNER_SPIN))
+ return 0;
+
+ rcu_read_lock();
+ if (lock->owner)
+ retval = lock->owner->on_cpu;
+ rcu_read_unlock();
+ /*
+ * if lock->owner is not set, the mutex owner may have just acquired
+ * it and not set the owner yet or the mutex has been released.
+ */
+ return retval;
+}
#endif

#ifdef CONFIG_PREEMPT
--
1.7.1

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