[PATCH v6] x86: use lock+addl for smp_mb()

From: Michael S. Tsirkin
Date: Fri Oct 27 2017 - 12:14:38 EST


mfence appears to be way slower than a locked instruction - let's use
lock+add unconditionally, as we always did on old 32-bit.

Results:
perf stat -r 10 -- ./virtio_ring_0_9 --sleep --host-affinity 0 --guest-affinity 0
Before:
0.922565990 seconds time elapsed ( +- 1.15% )
After:
0.578667024 seconds time elapsed ( +- 1.21% )

Just poking at SP would be the most natural, but if we then read the
value from SP, we get a false dependency which will slow us down.

This was noted in this article:
http://shipilev.net/blog/2014/on-the-fence-with-dependencies/

And is easy to reproduce by sticking a barrier in a small non-inline
function.

So let's use a negative offset - which avoids this problem since we
build with the red zone disabled.

For userspace, use an address just below the redzone.

The one difference between lock+add and mfence is that lock+addl does
not affect clflush, previous patches converted all uses of clflush to
call mb(), such that changes to smp_mb won't affect it.

Update mb/rmb/wmb on 32 bit to use the negative offset, too, for
consistency.

As a follow-up, it might be worth considering switching users
of clflush to another API (e.g. clflush_mb?) - we will
then be able to convert mb to smp_mb.

Also arguably, gcc should switch to use lock+add for __sync_synchronize.
This might be worth pursuing separately.

Suggested-by: Andy Lutomirski <luto@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Michael S. Tsirkin <mst@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
arch/x86/include/asm/barrier.h | 12 ++++++++----
1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

Changes from v5:
- ringtest update
- document mb() interaction with clflush
- add micro-benchmark results


diff --git a/arch/x86/include/asm/barrier.h b/arch/x86/include/asm/barrier.h
index bfb28ca..3c6ba1e 100644
--- a/arch/x86/include/asm/barrier.h
+++ b/arch/x86/include/asm/barrier.h
@@ -11,11 +11,11 @@
*/

#ifdef CONFIG_X86_32
-#define mb() asm volatile(ALTERNATIVE("lock; addl $0,0(%%esp)", "mfence", \
+#define mb() asm volatile(ALTERNATIVE("lock; addl $0,-4(%%esp)", "mfence", \
X86_FEATURE_XMM2) ::: "memory", "cc")
-#define rmb() asm volatile(ALTERNATIVE("lock; addl $0,0(%%esp)", "lfence", \
+#define rmb() asm volatile(ALTERNATIVE("lock; addl $0,-4(%%esp)", "lfence", \
X86_FEATURE_XMM2) ::: "memory", "cc")
-#define wmb() asm volatile(ALTERNATIVE("lock; addl $0,0(%%esp)", "sfence", \
+#define wmb() asm volatile(ALTERNATIVE("lock; addl $0,-4(%%esp)", "sfence", \
X86_FEATURE_XMM2) ::: "memory", "cc")
#else
#define mb() asm volatile("mfence":::"memory")
@@ -30,7 +30,11 @@
#endif
#define dma_wmb() barrier()

-#define __smp_mb() mb()
+#ifdef CONFIG_X86_32
+#define __smp_mb() asm volatile("lock; addl $0,-4(%%esp)" ::: "memory", "cc")
+#else
+#define __smp_mb() asm volatile("lock; addl $0,-4(%%rsp)" ::: "memory", "cc")
+#endif
#define __smp_rmb() dma_rmb()
#define __smp_wmb() barrier()
#define __smp_store_mb(var, value) do { (void)xchg(&var, value); } while (0)
diff --git a/tools/virtio/ringtest/main.h b/tools/virtio/ringtest/main.h
index 90b0133..5706e07 100644
--- a/tools/virtio/ringtest/main.h
+++ b/tools/virtio/ringtest/main.h
@@ -110,11 +110,15 @@ static inline void busy_wait(void)
barrier();
}

+#if defined(__x86_64__) || defined(__i386__)
+#define smp_mb() asm volatile("lock; addl $0,-128(%%rsp)" ::: "memory", "cc")
+#else
/*
* Not using __ATOMIC_SEQ_CST since gcc docs say they are only synchronized
* with other __ATOMIC_SEQ_CST calls.
*/
#define smp_mb() __sync_synchronize()
+#endif

/*
* This abuses the atomic builtins for thread fences, and
--
MST