linux-toradex.git/include/linux/futex.h, branch v2.6.22.4

Revert "futex_requeue_pi optimization"

2007-06-18T16:48:41+00:00

This reverts commit d0aa7a70bf03b9de9e995ab272293be1f7937822.

It not only introduced user space visible changes to the futex syscall,
it is also non-functional and there is no way to fix it proper before
the 2.6.22 release.

The breakage report ( http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/5/12/17 ) went
unanswered, and unfortunately it turned out that the concept is not
feasible at all.  It violates the rtmutex semantics badly by introducing
a virtual owner, which hacks around the coupling of the user-space
pi_futex and the kernel internal rt_mutex representation.

At the moment the only safe option is to remove it fully as it contains
user-space visible changes to broken kernel code, which we do not want
to expose in the 2.6.22 release.

The patch reverts the original patch mostly 1:1, but contains a couple
of trivial manual cleanups which were necessary due to patches, which
touched the same area of code later.

Verified against the glibc tests and my own PI futex tests.

Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner 
Acked-by: Ingo Molnar 
Acked-by: Ulrich Drepper 
Cc: Pierre Peiffer 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

FUTEX: new PRIVATE futexes

2007-05-09T19:30:55+00:00

  Analysis of current linux futex code :
  --------------------------------------

A central hash table futex_queues[] holds all contexts (futex_q) of waiting
threads.

Each futex_wait()/futex_wait() has to obtain a spinlock on a hash slot to
perform lookups or insert/deletion of a futex_q.

When a futex_wait() is done, calling thread has to :

1) - Obtain a read lock on mmap_sem to be able to validate the user pointer
     (calling find_vma()). This validation tells us if the futex uses
     an inode based store (mapped file), or mm based store (anonymous mem)

2) - compute a hash key

3) - Atomic increment of reference counter on an inode or a mm_struct

4) - lock part of futex_queues[] hash table

5) - perform the test on value of futex.
	(rollback is value != expected_value, returns EWOULDBLOCK)
	(various loops if test triggers mm faults)

6) queue the context into hash table, release the lock got in 4)

7) - release the read_lock on mmap_sem

   

8) Eventually unqueue the context (but rarely, as this part  may be done
   by the futex_wake())

Futexes were designed to improve scalability but current implementation has
various problems :

- Central hashtable :

  This means scalability problems if many processes/threads want to use
  futexes at the same time.
  This means NUMA unbalance because this hashtable is located on one node.

- Using mmap_sem on every futex() syscall :

  Even if mmap_sem is a rw_semaphore, up_read()/down_read() are doing atomic
  ops on mmap_sem, dirtying cache line :
    - lot of cache line ping pongs on SMP configurations.

  mmap_sem is also extensively used by mm code (page faults, mmap()/munmap())
  Highly threaded processes might suffer from mmap_sem contention.

  mmap_sem is also used by oprofile code. Enabling oprofile hurts threaded
  programs because of contention on the mmap_sem cache line.

- Using an atomic_inc()/atomic_dec() on inode ref counter or mm ref counter:
  It's also a cache line ping pong on SMP. It also increases mmap_sem hold time
  because of cache misses.

Most of these scalability problems come from the fact that futexes are in
one global namespace.  As we use a central hash table, we must make sure
they are all using the same reference (given by the mm subsystem).  We
chose to force all futexes be 'shared'.  This has a cost.

But fact is POSIX defined PRIVATE and SHARED, allowing clear separation,
and optimal performance if carefuly implemented.  Time has come for linux
to have better threading performance.

The goal is to permit new futex commands to avoid :
 - Taking the mmap_sem semaphore, conflicting with other subsystems.
 - Modifying a ref_count on mm or an inode, still conflicting with mm or fs.

This is possible because, for one process using PTHREAD_PROCESS_PRIVATE
futexes, we only need to distinguish futexes by their virtual address, no
matter the underlying mm storage is.

If glibc wants to exploit this new infrastructure, it should use new
_PRIVATE futex subcommands for PTHREAD_PROCESS_PRIVATE futexes.  And be
prepared to fallback on old subcommands for old kernels.  Using one global
variable with the FUTEX_PRIVATE_FLAG or 0 value should be OK.

PTHREAD_PROCESS_SHARED futexes should still use the old subcommands.

Compatibility with old applications is preserved, they still hit the
scalability problems, but new applications can fly :)

Note : the same SHARED futex (mapped on a file) can be used by old binaries
*and* new binaries, because both binaries will use the old subcommands.

Note : Vast majority of futexes should be using PROCESS_PRIVATE semantic,
as this is the default semantic. Almost all applications should benefit
of this changes (new kernel and updated libc)

Some bench results on a Pentium M 1.6 GHz (SMP kernel on a UP machine)

/* calling futex_wait(addr, value) with value != *addr */
433 cycles per futex(FUTEX_WAIT) call (mixing 2 futexes)
424 cycles per futex(FUTEX_WAIT) call (using one futex)
334 cycles per futex(FUTEX_WAIT_PRIVATE) call (mixing 2 futexes)
334 cycles per futex(FUTEX_WAIT_PRIVATE) call (using one futex)
For reference :
187 cycles per getppid() call
188 cycles per umask() call
181 cycles per ni_syscall() call

Signed-off-by: Eric Dumazet 
Pierre Peiffer 
Cc: "Ulrich Drepper" 
Cc: "Nick Piggin" 
Cc: "Ingo Molnar" 
Cc: Rusty Russell 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

futex_requeue_pi optimization

2007-05-09T19:30:55+00:00

This patch provides the futex_requeue_pi functionality, which allows some
threads waiting on a normal futex to be requeued on the wait-queue of a
PI-futex.

This provides an optimization, already used for (normal) futexes, to be used
with the PI-futexes.

This optimization is currently used by the glibc in pthread_broadcast, when
using "normal" mutexes.  With futex_requeue_pi, it can be used with
PRIO_INHERIT mutexes too.

Signed-off-by: Pierre Peiffer 
Cc: Ingo Molnar 
Cc: Ulrich Drepper 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

Make futex_wait() use an hrtimer for timeout

2007-05-09T19:30:55+00:00

This patch modifies futex_wait() to use an hrtimer + schedule() in place of
schedule_timeout().

schedule_timeout() is tick based, therefore the timeout granularity is the
tick (1 ms, 4 ms or 10 ms depending on HZ).  By using a high resolution timer
for timeout wakeup, we can attain a much finer timeout granularity (in the
microsecond range).  This parallels what is already done for futex_lock_pi().

The timeout passed to the syscall is no longer converted to jiffies and is
therefore passed to do_futex() and futex_wait() as an absolute ktime_t
therefore keeping nanosecond resolution.

Also this removes the need to pass the nanoseconds timeout part to
futex_lock_pi() in val2.

In futex_wait(), if there is no timeout then a regular schedule() is
performed.  Otherwise, an hrtimer is fired before schedule() is called.

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix `make headers_check']
Signed-off-by: Sebastien Dugue 
Signed-off-by: Pierre Peiffer 
Cc: Ingo Molnar 
Cc: Ulrich Drepper 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

futex: get_futex_key, get_key_refs and drop_key_refs

2007-05-08T18:15:03+00:00

lguest uses the convenient futex infrastructure for inter-domain I/O, so
expose get_futex_key, get_key_refs (renamed get_futex_key_refs) and
drop_key_refs (renamed drop_futex_key_refs).  Also means we need to expose the
union that these use.

No code changes.

Signed-off-by: Rusty Russell 
Cc: Andi Kleen 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

[PATCH] Fix noise in futex.h

2006-12-10T17:55:41+00:00

There are some kernel-only bits in the middle of  which
should be removed in what we export to userspace.

Signed-off-by: David Woodhouse 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

[PATCH] pi-futex: robust-futex exit

2006-07-29T04:02:00+00:00

Fix robust PI-futexes to be properly unlocked on unexpected exit.

For this to work the kernel has to know whether a futex is a PI or a
non-PI one, because the semantics are different.  Since the space in
relevant glibc data structures is extremely scarce, the best solution is
to encode the 'PI' information in bit 0 of the robust list pointer.
Existing (non-PI) glibc robust futexes have this bit always zero, so the
ABI is kept.  New glibc with PI-robust-futexes will set this bit.

Further fixes from Thomas Gleixner 

Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar 
Signed-off-by: Ulrich Drepper 
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

[PATCH] pi-futex: futex_lock_pi/futex_unlock_pi support

2006-06-28T00:32:47+00:00

This adds the actual pi-futex implementation, based on rt-mutexes.

[dino@in.ibm.com: fix an oops-causing race]
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar 
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner 
Signed-off-by: Arjan van de Ven 
Signed-off-by: Dinakar Guniguntala 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

[PATCH] pi-futex: futex code cleanups

2006-06-28T00:32:46+00:00

We are pleased to announce "lightweight userspace priority inheritance" (PI)
support for futexes.  The following patchset and glibc patch implements it,
ontop of the robust-futexes patchset which is included in 2.6.16-mm1.

We are calling it lightweight for 3 reasons:

 - in the user-space fastpath a PI-enabled futex involves no kernel work
   (or any other PI complexity) at all.  No registration, no extra kernel
   calls - just pure fast atomic ops in userspace.

 - in the slowpath (in the lock-contention case), the system call and
   scheduling pattern is in fact better than that of normal futexes, due to
   the 'integrated' nature of FUTEX_LOCK_PI.  [more about that further down]

 - the in-kernel PI implementation is streamlined around the mutex
   abstraction, with strict rules that keep the implementation relatively
   simple: only a single owner may own a lock (i.e.  no read-write lock
   support), only the owner may unlock a lock, no recursive locking, etc.

  Priority Inheritance - why, oh why???
  -------------------------------------

Many of you heard the horror stories about the evil PI code circling Linux for
years, which makes no real sense at all and is only used by buggy applications
and which has horrible overhead.  Some of you have dreaded this very moment,
when someone actually submits working PI code ;-)

So why would we like to see PI support for futexes?

We'd like to see it done purely for technological reasons.  We dont think it's
a buggy concept, we think it's useful functionality to offer to applications,
which functionality cannot be achieved in other ways.  We also think it's the
right thing to do, and we think we've got the right arguments and the right
numbers to prove that.  We also believe that we can address all the
counter-arguments as well.  For these reasons (and the reasons outlined below)
we are submitting this patch-set for upstream kernel inclusion.

What are the benefits of PI?

  The short reply:
  ----------------

User-space PI helps achieving/improving determinism for user-space
applications.  In the best-case, it can help achieve determinism and
well-bound latencies.  Even in the worst-case, PI will improve the statistical
distribution of locking related application delays.

  The longer reply:
  -----------------

Firstly, sharing locks between multiple tasks is a common programming
technique that often cannot be replaced with lockless algorithms.  As we can
see it in the kernel [which is a quite complex program in itself], lockless
structures are rather the exception than the norm - the current ratio of
lockless vs.  locky code for shared data structures is somewhere between 1:10
and 1:100.  Lockless is hard, and the complexity of lockless algorithms often
endangers to ability to do robust reviews of said code.  I.e.  critical RT
apps often choose lock structures to protect critical data structures, instead
of lockless algorithms.  Furthermore, there are cases (like shared hardware,
or other resource limits) where lockless access is mathematically impossible.

Media players (such as Jack) are an example of reasonable application design
with multiple tasks (with multiple priority levels) sharing short-held locks:
for example, a highprio audio playback thread is combined with medium-prio
construct-audio-data threads and low-prio display-colory-stuff threads.  Add
video and decoding to the mix and we've got even more priority levels.

So once we accept that synchronization objects (locks) are an unavoidable fact
of life, and once we accept that multi-task userspace apps have a very fair
expectation of being able to use locks, we've got to think about how to offer
the option of a deterministic locking implementation to user-space.

Most of the technical counter-arguments against doing priority inheritance
only apply to kernel-space locks.  But user-space locks are different, there
we cannot disable interrupts or make the task non-preemptible in a critical
section, so the 'use spinlocks' argument does not apply (user-space spinlocks
have the same priority inversion problems as other user-space locking
constructs).  Fact is, pretty much the only technique that currently enables
good determinism for userspace locks (such as futex-based pthread mutexes) is
priority inheritance:

Currently (without PI), if a high-prio and a low-prio task shares a lock [this
is a quite common scenario for most non-trivial RT applications], even if all
critical sections are coded carefully to be deterministic (i.e.  all critical
sections are short in duration and only execute a limited number of
instructions), the kernel cannot guarantee any deterministic execution of the
high-prio task: any medium-priority task could preempt the low-prio task while
it holds the shared lock and executes the critical section, and could delay it
indefinitely.

  Implementation:
  ---------------

As mentioned before, the userspace fastpath of PI-enabled pthread mutexes
involves no kernel work at all - they behave quite similarly to normal
futex-based locks: a 0 value means unlocked, and a value==TID means locked.
(This is the same method as used by list-based robust futexes.) Userspace uses
atomic ops to lock/unlock these mutexes without entering the kernel.

To handle the slowpath, we have added two new futex ops:

  FUTEX_LOCK_PI
  FUTEX_UNLOCK_PI

If the lock-acquire fastpath fails, [i.e.  an atomic transition from 0 to TID
fails], then FUTEX_LOCK_PI is called.  The kernel does all the remaining work:
if there is no futex-queue attached to the futex address yet then the code
looks up the task that owns the futex [it has put its own TID into the futex
value], and attaches a 'PI state' structure to the futex-queue.  The pi_state
includes an rt-mutex, which is a PI-aware, kernel-based synchronization
object.  The 'other' task is made the owner of the rt-mutex, and the
FUTEX_WAITERS bit is atomically set in the futex value.  Then this task tries
to lock the rt-mutex, on which it blocks.  Once it returns, it has the mutex
acquired, and it sets the futex value to its own TID and returns.  Userspace
has no other work to perform - it now owns the lock, and futex value contains
FUTEX_WAITERS|TID.

If the unlock side fastpath succeeds, [i.e.  userspace manages to do a TID ->
0 atomic transition of the futex value], then no kernel work is triggered.

If the unlock fastpath fails (because the FUTEX_WAITERS bit is set), then
FUTEX_UNLOCK_PI is called, and the kernel unlocks the futex on the behalf of
userspace - and it also unlocks the attached pi_state->rt_mutex and thus wakes
up any potential waiters.

Note that under this approach, contrary to other PI-futex approaches, there is
no prior 'registration' of a PI-futex.  [which is not quite possible anyway,
due to existing ABI properties of pthread mutexes.]

Also, under this scheme, 'robustness' and 'PI' are two orthogonal properties
of futexes, and all four combinations are possible: futex, robust-futex,
PI-futex, robust+PI-futex.

  glibc support:
  --------------

Ulrich Drepper and Jakub Jelinek have written glibc support for PI-futexes
(and robust futexes), enabling robust and PI (PTHREAD_PRIO_INHERIT) POSIX
mutexes.  (PTHREAD_PRIO_PROTECT support will be added later on too, no
additional kernel changes are needed for that).  [NOTE: The glibc patch is
obviously inofficial and unsupported without matching upstream kernel
functionality.]

the patch-queue and the glibc patch can also be downloaded from:

  http://redhat.com/~mingo/PI-futex-patches/

Many thanks go to the people who helped us create this kernel feature: Steven
Rostedt, Esben Nielsen, Benedikt Spranger, Daniel Walker, John Cooper, Arjan
van de Ven, Oleg Nesterov and others.  Credits for related prior projects goes
to Dirk Grambow, Inaky Perez-Gonzalez, Bill Huey and many others.

Clean up the futex code, before adding more features to it:

 - use u32 as the futex field type - that's the ABI
 - use __user and pointers to u32 instead of unsigned long
 - code style / comment style cleanups
 - rename hash-bucket name from 'bh' to 'hb'.

I checked the pre and post futex.o object files to make sure this
patch has no code effects.

Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar 
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner 
Signed-off-by: Arjan van de Ven 
Cc: Ulrich Drepper 
Cc: Jakub Jelinek 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds

[PATCH] lightweight robust futexes updates 2

2006-03-27T16:44:50+00:00

futex.h updates:

- get rid of FUTEX_OWNER_PENDING - it's not used
- reduce ROBUST_LIST_LIMIT to a saner value

Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar 
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds