Re: [PATCH] locking/rwsem: Optimize write lock slowpath

[Peter Zijlstra]

On Mon, May 09, 2016 at 12:16:37PM -0700, Jason Low wrote:
> When acquiring the rwsem write lock in the slowpath, we first try
> to set count to RWSEM_WAITING_BIAS. When that is successful,
> we then atomically add the RWSEM_WAITING_BIAS in cases where
> there are other tasks on the wait list. This causes write lock
> operations to often issue multiple atomic operations.
> 
> We can instead make the list_is_singular() check first, and then
> set the count accordingly, so that we issue at most 1 atomic
> operation when acquiring the write lock and reduce unnecessary
> cacheline contention.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Jason Low <jason.low2@xxxxxx>
> ---
>  kernel/locking/rwsem-xadd.c | 20 +++++++++++++-------
>  1 file changed, 13 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/kernel/locking/rwsem-xadd.c b/kernel/locking/rwsem-xadd.c
> index df4dcb8..23c33e6 100644
> --- a/kernel/locking/rwsem-xadd.c
> +++ b/kernel/locking/rwsem-xadd.c
> @@ -258,14 +258,20 @@ EXPORT_SYMBOL(rwsem_down_read_failed);
>  static inline bool rwsem_try_write_lock(long count, struct rw_semaphore *sem)
>  {
>  	/*
> +	 * Avoid trying to acquire write lock if count isn't RWSEM_WAITING_BIAS.
>  	 */
> +	if (count != RWSEM_WAITING_BIAS)
> +		return false;
> +
> +	/*
> +	 * Acquire the lock by trying to set it to ACTIVE_WRITE_BIAS. If there
> +	 * are other tasks on the wait list, we need to add on WAITING_BIAS.
> +	 */
> +	count = list_is_singular(&sem->wait_list) ?
> +			RWSEM_ACTIVE_WRITE_BIAS :
> +			RWSEM_ACTIVE_WRITE_BIAS + RWSEM_WAITING_BIAS;
> +
> +	if (cmpxchg_acquire(&sem->count, RWSEM_WAITING_BIAS, count) == RWSEM_WAITING_BIAS) {
>  		rwsem_set_owner(sem);
>  		return true;
>  	}

Right; so that whole thing works because we're holding sem->wait_lock.
Should we clarify that someplace?

Also; should we not make rw_semaphore::count an atomic_long_t and kill
rwsem_atomic_{update,add}() ?