Re: [PATCH 2/4] locking/qrwlock: Reduce reader/writer to reader lock transfer latency

[Will Deacon]

On Tue, Jul 07, 2015 at 06:27:18PM +0100, Will Deacon wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 07, 2015 at 03:30:22PM +0100, Waiman Long wrote:
> > On 07/07/2015 07:49 AM, Will Deacon wrote:
> > > On Tue, Jul 07, 2015 at 12:17:31PM +0100, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> > >> On Tue, Jul 07, 2015 at 10:17:11AM +0100, Will Deacon wrote:
> > >>>>> Thinking about it, can we kill _QW_WAITING altogether and set (cmpxchg
> > >>>>> from 0) wmode to _QW_LOCKED in the write_lock slowpath, polling (acquire)
> > >>>>> rmode until it hits zero?
> > >>>> No, this is how we make the lock fair so that an incoming streams of
> > >>>> later readers won't block a writer from getting the lock.
> > >>> But won't those readers effectively see that the lock is held for write
> > >>> (because we set wmode to _QW_LOCKED before the existing reader had drained)
> > >>> and therefore fall down the slow-path and get held up on the spinlock?
> > >> Yes, that's the entire point. Once there's a writer pending, new readers
> > >> should queue too.
> > > Agreed. My point was that we can achieve the same result without
> > > a separate _QW_WAITING flag afaict.
> > 
> > _QW_WAITING and _QW_LOCKED has different semantics and are necessary for 
> > the proper handshake between readers and writer. We set _QW_WAITING when 
> > readers own the lock and the writer is waiting for the readers to go 
> > away. The _QW_WAITING flag will force new readers to go to queuing while 
> > the writer is waiting. We set _QW_LOCKED when a writer own the lock and 
> > it can only be set atomically when no reader is present. Without the 
> > intermediate _QW_WAITING step, a continuous stream of incoming readers 
> > (which make the reader count never 0) could deny a writer from getting 
> > the lock indefinitely.
> 
> It's probably best if I try to implement something and we can either pick
> holes in the patch or I'll realise why I'm wrong in the process :)

Hmm, wasn't very enlightening. What's wrong with the following?

Will

--->8

diff --git a/include/asm-generic/qrwlock.h b/include/asm-generic/qrwlock.h
index deb9e8b0eb9e..be8dc5c6fdbd 100644
--- a/include/asm-generic/qrwlock.h
+++ b/include/asm-generic/qrwlock.h
@@ -27,7 +27,6 @@
 /*
  * Writer states & reader shift and bias
  */
-#define        _QW_WAITING     1               /* A writer is waiting     */
 #define        _QW_LOCKED      0xff            /* A writer holds the lock */
 #define        _QW_WMASK       0xff            /* Writer mask             */
 #define        _QR_SHIFT       8               /* Reader count shift      */
diff --git a/kernel/locking/qrwlock.c b/kernel/locking/qrwlock.c
index 9f644933f6d4..4006aa1fbd0b 100644
--- a/kernel/locking/qrwlock.c
+++ b/kernel/locking/qrwlock.c
@@ -127,28 +127,23 @@ void queued_write_lock_slowpath(struct qrwlock *lock)
        }
 
        /*
-        * Set the waiting flag to notify readers that a writer is pending,
-        * or wait for a previous writer to go away.
+        * Wait for a previous writer to go away, then set the locked
+        * flag to notify future readers/writers that we are pending.
         */
        for (;;) {
                struct __qrwlock *l = (struct __qrwlock *)lock;
 
                if (!READ_ONCE(l->wmode) &&
-                  (cmpxchg(&l->wmode, 0, _QW_WAITING) == 0))
+                  (cmpxchg(&l->wmode, 0, _QW_LOCKED) == 0))
                        break;
 
                cpu_relax_lowlatency();
        }
 
-       /* When no more readers, set the locked flag */
-       for (;;) {
-               if ((atomic_read(&lock->cnts) == _QW_WAITING) &&
-                   (atomic_cmpxchg(&lock->cnts, _QW_WAITING,
-                                   _QW_LOCKED) == _QW_WAITING))
-                       break;
-
+       /* Wait for the readers to drain */
+       while (smp_load_acquire((u32 *)&lock->cnts) & ~_QW_WMASK)
                cpu_relax_lowlatency();
-       }
+
 unlock:
        arch_spin_unlock(&lock->lock);
 }
--
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