139 lines
5.8 KiB
Plaintext
139 lines
5.8 KiB
Plaintext
Generic Mutex Subsystem
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started by Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>
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"Why on earth do we need a new mutex subsystem, and what's wrong
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with semaphores?"
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firstly, there's nothing wrong with semaphores. But if the simpler
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mutex semantics are sufficient for your code, then there are a couple
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of advantages of mutexes:
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- 'struct mutex' is smaller on most architectures: .e.g on x86,
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'struct semaphore' is 20 bytes, 'struct mutex' is 16 bytes.
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A smaller structure size means less RAM footprint, and better
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CPU-cache utilization.
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- tighter code. On x86 i get the following .text sizes when
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switching all mutex-alike semaphores in the kernel to the mutex
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subsystem:
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text data bss dec hex filename
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3280380 868188 396860 4545428 455b94 vmlinux-semaphore
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3255329 865296 396732 4517357 44eded vmlinux-mutex
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that's 25051 bytes of code saved, or a 0.76% win - off the hottest
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codepaths of the kernel. (The .data savings are 2892 bytes, or 0.33%)
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Smaller code means better icache footprint, which is one of the
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major optimization goals in the Linux kernel currently.
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- the mutex subsystem is slightly faster and has better scalability for
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contended workloads. On an 8-way x86 system, running a mutex-based
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kernel and testing creat+unlink+close (of separate, per-task files)
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in /tmp with 16 parallel tasks, the average number of ops/sec is:
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Semaphores: Mutexes:
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$ ./test-mutex V 16 10 $ ./test-mutex V 16 10
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8 CPUs, running 16 tasks. 8 CPUs, running 16 tasks.
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checking VFS performance. checking VFS performance.
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avg loops/sec: 34713 avg loops/sec: 84153
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CPU utilization: 63% CPU utilization: 22%
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i.e. in this workload, the mutex based kernel was 2.4 times faster
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than the semaphore based kernel, _and_ it also had 2.8 times less CPU
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utilization. (In terms of 'ops per CPU cycle', the semaphore kernel
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performed 551 ops/sec per 1% of CPU time used, while the mutex kernel
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performed 3825 ops/sec per 1% of CPU time used - it was 6.9 times
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more efficient.)
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the scalability difference is visible even on a 2-way P4 HT box:
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Semaphores: Mutexes:
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$ ./test-mutex V 16 10 $ ./test-mutex V 16 10
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4 CPUs, running 16 tasks. 8 CPUs, running 16 tasks.
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checking VFS performance. checking VFS performance.
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avg loops/sec: 127659 avg loops/sec: 181082
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CPU utilization: 100% CPU utilization: 34%
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(the straight performance advantage of mutexes is 41%, the per-cycle
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efficiency of mutexes is 4.1 times better.)
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- there are no fastpath tradeoffs, the mutex fastpath is just as tight
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as the semaphore fastpath. On x86, the locking fastpath is 2
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instructions:
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c0377ccb <mutex_lock>:
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c0377ccb: f0 ff 08 lock decl (%eax)
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c0377cce: 78 0e js c0377cde <.text.lock.mutex>
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c0377cd0: c3 ret
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the unlocking fastpath is equally tight:
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c0377cd1 <mutex_unlock>:
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c0377cd1: f0 ff 00 lock incl (%eax)
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c0377cd4: 7e 0f jle c0377ce5 <.text.lock.mutex+0x7>
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c0377cd6: c3 ret
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- 'struct mutex' semantics are well-defined and are enforced if
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CONFIG_DEBUG_MUTEXES is turned on. Semaphores on the other hand have
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virtually no debugging code or instrumentation. The mutex subsystem
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checks and enforces the following rules:
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* - only one task can hold the mutex at a time
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* - only the owner can unlock the mutex
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* - multiple unlocks are not permitted
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* - recursive locking is not permitted
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* - a mutex object must be initialized via the API
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* - a mutex object must not be initialized via memset or copying
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* - task may not exit with mutex held
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* - memory areas where held locks reside must not be freed
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* - held mutexes must not be reinitialized
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* - mutexes may not be used in hardware or software interrupt
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* contexts such as tasklets and timers
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furthermore, there are also convenience features in the debugging
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code:
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* - uses symbolic names of mutexes, whenever they are printed in debug output
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* - point-of-acquire tracking, symbolic lookup of function names
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* - list of all locks held in the system, printout of them
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* - owner tracking
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* - detects self-recursing locks and prints out all relevant info
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* - detects multi-task circular deadlocks and prints out all affected
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* locks and tasks (and only those tasks)
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Disadvantages
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-------------
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The stricter mutex API means you cannot use mutexes the same way you
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can use semaphores: e.g. they cannot be used from an interrupt context,
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nor can they be unlocked from a different context that which acquired
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it. [ I'm not aware of any other (e.g. performance) disadvantages from
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using mutexes at the moment, please let me know if you find any. ]
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Implementation of mutexes
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-------------------------
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'struct mutex' is the new mutex type, defined in include/linux/mutex.h
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and implemented in kernel/mutex.c. It is a counter-based mutex with a
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spinlock and a wait-list. The counter has 3 states: 1 for "unlocked",
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0 for "locked" and negative numbers (usually -1) for "locked, potential
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waiters queued".
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the APIs of 'struct mutex' have been streamlined:
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DEFINE_MUTEX(name);
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mutex_init(mutex);
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void mutex_lock(struct mutex *lock);
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int mutex_lock_interruptible(struct mutex *lock);
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int mutex_trylock(struct mutex *lock);
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void mutex_unlock(struct mutex *lock);
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int mutex_is_locked(struct mutex *lock);
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void mutex_lock_nested(struct mutex *lock, unsigned int subclass);
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int mutex_lock_interruptible_nested(struct mutex *lock,
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unsigned int subclass);
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