Re: [PATCH 1/1] psi: stop relying on timer_pending for poll_work rescheduling

[Peter Zijlstra]

On Thu, Jun 17, 2021 at 02:26:54PM -0700, Suren Baghdasaryan wrote:
> Psi polling mechanism is trying to minimize the number of wakeups to
> run psi_poll_work and is currently relying on timer_pending() to detect
> when this work is already scheduled. This provides a window of opportunity
> for psi_group_change to schedule an immediate psi_poll_work after
> poll_timer_fn got called but before psi_poll_work could reschedule itself.
> Below is the depiction of this entire window:
> 
> poll_timer_fn
>   wake_up_interruptible(&group->poll_wait);
> 
> psi_poll_worker
>   wait_event_interruptible(group->poll_wait, ...)
>   psi_poll_work
>     psi_schedule_poll_work
>       if (timer_pending(&group->poll_timer)) return;
>       ...
>       mod_timer(&group->poll_timer, jiffies + delay);
> 
> Prior to 461daba06bdc we used to rely on poll_scheduled atomic which was
> reset and set back inside psi_poll_work and therefore this race window
> was much smaller.
> The larger window causes increased number of wakeups and our partners
> report visible power regression of ~10mA after applying 461daba06bdc.
> Bring back the poll_scheduled atomic and make this race window even
> narrower by resetting poll_scheduled only when we reach polling expiration
> time. This does not completely eliminate the possibility of extra wakeups
> caused by a race with psi_group_change however it will limit it to the
> worst case scenario of one extra wakeup per every tracking window (0.5s
> in the worst case).
> By tracing the number of immediate rescheduling attempts performed by
> psi_group_change and the number of these attempts being blocked due to
> psi monitor being already active, we can assess the effects of this change:
> 
> Before the patch:
>                                            Run#1    Run#2      Run#3
> Immediate reschedules attempted:           684365   1385156    1261240
> Immediate reschedules blocked:             682846   1381654    1258682
> Immediate reschedules (delta):             1519     3502       2558
> Immediate reschedules (% of attempted):    0.22%    0.25%      0.20%
> 
> After the patch:
>                                            Run#1    Run#2      Run#3
> Immediate reschedules attempted:           882244   770298    426218
> Immediate reschedules blocked:             881996   769796    426074
> Immediate reschedules (delta):             248      502       144
> Immediate reschedules (% of attempted):    0.03%    0.07%     0.03%
> 
> The number of non-blocked immediate reschedules dropped from 0.22-0.25%
> to 0.03-0.07%. The drop is attributed to the decrease in the race window
> size and the fact that we allow this race only when psi monitors reach
> polling window expiration time.
> 
> Fixes: 461daba06bdc ("psi: eliminate kthread_worker from psi trigger scheduling mechanism")
> Reported-by: Kathleen Chang <yt.chang@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Reported-by: Wenju Xu <wenju.xu@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Reported-by: Jonathan Chen <jonathan.jmchen@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Suren Baghdasaryan <surenb@xxxxxxxxxx>

Johannes?


> -/* Schedule polling if it's not already scheduled. */
> -static void psi_schedule_poll_work(struct psi_group *group, unsigned long delay)
> +/* Schedule polling if it's not already scheduled or forced. */
> +static void psi_schedule_poll_work(struct psi_group *group, unsigned long delay,
> +				   bool force)
>  {
>  	struct task_struct *task;
>  
> -	/*
> -	 * Do not reschedule if already scheduled.
> -	 * Possible race with a timer scheduled after this check but before
> -	 * mod_timer below can be tolerated because group->polling_next_update
> -	 * will keep updates on schedule.
> -	 */
> -	if (timer_pending(&group->poll_timer))
> +	/* cmpxchg should be called even when !force to set poll_scheduled */
> +	if (atomic_cmpxchg(&group->poll_scheduled, 0, 1) != 0 && !force)

Do you care about memory ordering here? Afaict the whole thing is
supposed to be ordered by ->trigger_lock, so you don't.

Howver, if you did, the code seems to suggest you need a RELEASE
ordering, but cmpxchg() as used above can fail in which case it does't
provide anything.

Also, I think the more conventional way to write that might be:

	if (atomic_xchg_relaxed(&group->poll_scheduled, 1) && !force)

Hmm?