rcu/segcblist: Prevent useless GP start if no CBs to accelerate
authorJoel Fernandes (Google) <joel@joelfernandes.org>
Thu, 18 Jun 2020 20:29:49 +0000 (16:29 -0400)
committerPaul E. McKenney <paulmck@kernel.org>
Thu, 3 Sep 2020 16:39:59 +0000 (09:39 -0700)
commit53922270d21de707a1a0ffaf1e07644e77fcb8db
treeef1db06216991731d164e3323a18de49c15f1e16
parent7f2a53c231fe5d9522c3b695ab454203904031ac
rcu/segcblist: Prevent useless GP start if no CBs to accelerate

The rcu_segcblist_accelerate() function returns true iff it is necessary
to request another grace period.  A tracing session showed that this
function unnecessarily requests grace periods.

For example, consider the following sequence of events:
1. Callbacks are queued only on the NEXT segment of CPU A's callback list.
2. CPU A runs RCU_SOFTIRQ, accelerating these callbacks from NEXT to WAIT.
3. Thus rcu_segcblist_accelerate() returns true, requesting grace period N.
4. RCU's grace-period kthread wakes up on CPU B and starts grace period N.
4. CPU A notices the new grace period and invokes RCU_SOFTIRQ.
5. CPU A's RCU_SOFTIRQ again invokes rcu_segcblist_accelerate(), but
   there are no new callbacks.  However, rcu_segcblist_accelerate()
   nevertheless (uselessly) requests a new grace period N+1.

This extra grace period results in additional lock contention and also
additional wakeups, all for no good reason.

This commit therefore adds a check to rcu_segcblist_accelerate() that
prevents the return of true when there are no new callbacks.

This change reduces the number of grace periods (GPs) and wakeups in each
of eleven five-second rcutorture runs as follows:

+----+-------------------+-------------------+
| #  | Number of GPs     | Number of Wakeups |
+====+=========+=========+=========+=========+
| 1  | With    | Without | With    | Without |
+----+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| 2  |      75 |      89 |     113 |     119 |
+----+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| 3  |      62 |      91 |     105 |     123 |
+----+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| 4  |      60 |      79 |      98 |     110 |
+----+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| 5  |      63 |      79 |      99 |     112 |
+----+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| 6  |      57 |      89 |      96 |     123 |
+----+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| 7  |      64 |      85 |      97 |     118 |
+----+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| 8  |      58 |      83 |      98 |     113 |
+----+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| 9  |      57 |      77 |      89 |     104 |
+----+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| 10 |      66 |      82 |      98 |     119 |
+----+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| 11 |      52 |      82 |      83 |     117 |
+----+---------+---------+---------+---------+

The reduction in the number of wakeups ranges from 5% to 40%.

Cc: urezki@gmail.com
[ paulmck: Rework commit log and comment. ]
Signed-off-by: Joel Fernandes (Google) <joel@joelfernandes.org>
Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@kernel.org>
kernel/rcu/rcu_segcblist.c