Add a function to allow a requeueable work item to sleep till the thread
processing it is needed by the slow-work facility to perform other work.
Sometimes a work item can't progress immediately, but must wait for the
completion of another work item that's currently being processed by another
slow-work thread.
In some circumstances, the waiting item could instead - theoretically - put
itself back on the queue and yield its thread back to the slow-work facility,
thus waiting till it gets processing time again before attempting to progress.
This would allow other work items processing time on that thread.
However, this only works if there is something on the queue for it to queue
behind - otherwise it will just get a thread again immediately, and will end
up cycling between the queue and the thread, eating up valuable CPU time.
So, slow_work_sleep_till_thread_needed() is provided such that an item can put
itself on a wait queue that will wake it up when the event it is actually
interested in occurs, then call this function in lieu of calling schedule().
This function will then sleep until either the item's event occurs or another
work item appears on the queue. If another work item is queued, but the
item's event hasn't occurred, then the work item should requeue itself and
yield the thread back to the slow-work facility by returning.
This can be used by CacheFiles for an object that is being created on one
thread to wait for an object being deleted on another thread where there is
nothing on the queue for the creation to go and wait behind. As soon as an
item appears on the queue that could be given thread time instead, CacheFiles
can stick the creating object back on the queue and return to the slow-work
facility - assuming the object deletion didn't also complete.
Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
Add a function (slow_work_is_queued()) to permit the owner of a work item to
determine if the item is queued or not.
The work item is counted as being queued if it is actually on the queue, not
just if it is pending. If it is executing and pending, then it is not on the
queue, but will rather be put back on the queue when execution finishes.
This permits a caller to quickly work out if it may be able to put another,
dependent work item on the queue behind it, or whether it will have to wait
till that is finished.
This can be used by CacheFiles to work out whether the creation a new object
can be immediately deferred when it has to wait for an old object to be
deleted, or whether a wait must take place. If a wait is necessary, then the
slow-work thread can otherwise get blocked, preventing the deletion from
taking place.
Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
This adds support for starting slow work with a delay, similar
to the functionality we have for workqueues.
Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <jens.axboe@oracle.com>
Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
Add support for cancellation of queued slow work and delayed slow work items.
The cancellation functions will wait for items that are pending or undergoing
execution to be discarded by the slow work facility.
Attempting to enqueue work that is in the process of being cancelled will
result in ECANCELED.
Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <jens.axboe@oracle.com>
Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
Wait for outstanding slow work items belonging to a module to clear when
unregistering that module as a user of the facility. This prevents the put_ref
code of a work item from being taken away before it returns.
Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
Fix a comment typo in slow-work.h
...a trivial mistake, but it will mess up kerneldoc if nothing else.
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Document the slow work thread pool.
Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Steve Dickson <steved@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Trond Myklebust <Trond.Myklebust@netapp.com>
Acked-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Tested-by: Daire Byrne <Daire.Byrne@framestore.com>
Make the slow work pool configurable through /proc/sys/kernel/slow-work.
(*) /proc/sys/kernel/slow-work/min-threads
The minimum number of threads that should be in the pool as long as it is
in use. This may be anywhere between 2 and max-threads.
(*) /proc/sys/kernel/slow-work/max-threads
The maximum number of threads that should in the pool. This may be
anywhere between min-threads and 255 or NR_CPUS * 2, whichever is greater.
(*) /proc/sys/kernel/slow-work/vslow-percentage
The percentage of active threads in the pool that may be used to execute
very slow work items. This may be between 1 and 99. The resultant number
is bounded to between 1 and one fewer than the number of active threads.
This ensures there is always at least one thread that can process very
slow work items, and always at least one thread that won't.
Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Serge Hallyn <serue@us.ibm.com>
Acked-by: Steve Dickson <steved@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Trond Myklebust <Trond.Myklebust@netapp.com>
Acked-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Tested-by: Daire Byrne <Daire.Byrne@framestore.com>
Create a dynamically sized pool of threads for doing very slow work items, such
as invoking mkdir() or rmdir() - things that may take a long time and may
sleep, holding mutexes/semaphores and hogging a thread, and are thus unsuitable
for workqueues.
The number of threads is always at least a settable minimum, but more are
started when there's more work to do, up to a limit. Because of the nature of
the load, it's not suitable for a 1-thread-per-CPU type pool. A system with
one CPU may well want several threads.
This is used by FS-Cache to do slow caching operations in the background, such
as looking up, creating or deleting cache objects.
Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Serge Hallyn <serue@us.ibm.com>
Acked-by: Steve Dickson <steved@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Trond Myklebust <Trond.Myklebust@netapp.com>
Acked-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Tested-by: Daire Byrne <Daire.Byrne@framestore.com>
David Howells