mutex: Make more scalable by doing less atomic operations

Date	Mon, 15 Apr 2013 10:37:57 -0400

In the __mutex_lock_common() function, an initial entry into
the lock slow path will cause two atomic_xchg instructions to be
issued. Together with the atomic decrement in the fast path, a total
of three atomic read-modify-write instructions will be issued in
rapid succession. This can cause a lot of cache bouncing when many
tasks are trying to acquire the mutex at the same time.

This patch will reduce the number of atomic_xchg instructions used by
checking the counter value first before issuing the instruction. The
atomic_read() function is just a simple memory read. The atomic_xchg()
function, on the other hand, can be up to 2 order of magnitude or even
more in cost when compared with atomic_read(). By using atomic_read()
to check the value first before calling atomic_xchg(), we can avoid a
lot of unnecessary cache coherency traffic. The only downside with this
change is that a task on the slow path will have a tiny bit
less chance of getting the mutex when competing with another task
in the fast path.

The same is true for the atomic_cmpxchg() function in the
mutex-spin-on-owner loop. So an atomic_read() is also performed before
calling atomic_cmpxchg().

The mutex locking and unlocking code for the x86 architecture can allow
any negative number to be used in the mutex count to indicate that some
tasks are waiting for the mutex. I am not so sure if that is the case
for the other architectures. So the default is to avoid atomic_xchg()
if the count has already been set to -1. For x86, the check is modified
to include all negative numbers to cover a larger case.

The following table shows the jobs per minutes (JPM) scalability data
on an 8-node 80-core Westmere box with a 3.7.10 kernel. The numactl
command is used to restrict the running of the high_systime workloads
to 1/2/4/8 nodes with hyperthreading on and off.

+-----------------+-----------+------------+----------+
|  Configuration  | Mean JPM  |  Mean JPM  | % Change |
|		  | w/o patch | with patch |	      |
+-----------------+-----------------------------------+
|		  |      User Range 1100 - 2000	      |
+-----------------+-----------------------------------+
| 8 nodes, HT on  |    36980   |   148590  | +301.8%  |
| 8 nodes, HT off |    42799   |   145011  | +238.8%  |
| 4 nodes, HT on  |    61318   |   118445  |  +51.1%  |
| 4 nodes, HT off |   158481   |   158592  |   +0.1%  |
| 2 nodes, HT on  |   180602   |   173967  |   -3.7%  |
| 2 nodes, HT off |   198409   |   198073  |   -0.2%  |
| 1 node , HT on  |   149042   |   147671  |   -0.9%  |
| 1 node , HT off |   126036   |   126533  |   +0.4%  |
+-----------------+-----------------------------------+
|		  |       User Range 200 - 1000	      |
+-----------------+-----------------------------------+
| 8 nodes, HT on  |   41525    |   122349  | +194.6%  |
| 8 nodes, HT off |   49866    |   124032  | +148.7%  |
| 4 nodes, HT on  |   66409    |   106984  |  +61.1%  |
| 4 nodes, HT off |  119880    |   130508  |   +8.9%  |
| 2 nodes, HT on  |  138003    |   133948  |   -2.9%  |
| 2 nodes, HT off |  132792    |   131997  |   -0.6%  |
| 1 node , HT on  |  116593    |   115859  |   -0.6%  |
| 1 node , HT off |  104499    |   104597  |   +0.1%  |
+-----------------+------------+-----------+----------+
At low user range 10-100, the JPM differences were within +/-1%. So
they are not that interesting.

AIM7 benchmark run has a pretty large run-to-run variance due to random
nature of the subtests executed. So a difference of less than +-5%
may not be really significant.

This patch improves high_systime workload performance at 4 nodes
and up by maintaining transaction rates without significant drop-off
at high node count.  The patch has practically no impact on 1 and 2
nodes system.

The table below shows the percentage time (as reported by perf
record -a -s -g) spent on the __mutex_lock_slowpath() function by
the high_systime workload at 1500 users for 2/4/8-node configurations
with hyperthreading off.

+---------------+-----------------+------------------+---------+
| Configuration | %Time w/o patch | %Time with patch | %Change |
+---------------+-----------------+------------------+---------+
|    8 nodes    |      65.34%     |      0.69%       |  -99%   |
|    4 nodes    |       8.70%	  |      1.02%	     |  -88%   |
|    2 nodes    |       0.41%     |      0.32%       |  -22%   |
+---------------+-----------------+------------------+---------+
It is obvious that the dramatic performance improvement at 8
nodes was due to the drastic cut in the time spent within the
__mutex_lock_slowpath() function.

The table below show the improvements in other AIM7 workloads (at 8
nodes, hyperthreading off).

+--------------+---------------+----------------+-----------------+
|   Workload   | mean % change | mean % change  | mean % change   |
|              | 10-100 users  | 200-1000 users | 1100-2000 users |
+--------------+---------------+----------------+-----------------+
| alltests     |     +0.6%     |   +104.2%      |   +185.9%       |
| five_sec     |     +1.9%     |     +0.9%      |     +0.9%       |
| fserver      |     +1.4%     |     -7.7%      |     +5.1%       |
| new_fserver  |     -0.5%     |     +3.2%      |     +3.1%       |
| shared       |    +13.1%     |   +146.1%      |   +181.5%       |
| short        |     +7.4%     |     +5.0%      |     +4.2%       |
+--------------+---------------+----------------+-----------------+
Signed-off-by: Waiman Long <Waiman.Long@hp.com>
Reviewed-by: Davidlohr Bueso <davidlohr.bueso@hp.com>
mutex: back out architecture specific check for negative mutex count

Date	Mon, 15 Apr 2013 10:37:59 -0400

If it is confirmed that all the supported architectures can allow a
negative mutex count without incorrect behavior, we can then back
out the architecture specific change and allow the mutex count to
go to any negative number. That should further reduce contention for
non-x86 architecture.

If this is not the case, this patch should be dropped.

Signed-off-by: Waiman Long <Waiman.Long@hp.com>
cpufreq: Retain only online cpus in managed_policy->cpus

cpufreq's handling of cpu online event can incorrectly initialize
managed_policy->cpus to include offline cpus. This causes cpufreq
governors to include offline cpus in their idle time computation, which
causes frequency to shoot up beyond normal levels (on systems where 2 or
more cpus need to be synchronized wrt frequency change).

This frequency shootup was not seen prior to commit 21111be8 which
changed idle time accounting for offline cpus. Prior to commit 21111be8,
idle time statistics for offline cpus would include their offline time
as well. Post commit 21111be8, offline time is not included in a cpu's
idle time statistics.

As a result, ondemand (or other cpufreq) governors would see unchanged
idle time for offline cpus, causing them to interpret those (offline)
cpus as 100% busy, which is wrong.

This patch fixes the issue by modifying cpufreq's hotplug handling to
retain only online cpus in managed_policy->cpus field. cpufreq governors
would then skip such offline cpus from idle time calculations.

Change-Id: Id2eba8c0ec3367609369b2e42a4e1386ff2e7ab5
Signed-off-by: Srivatsa Vaddagiri <vatsa@codeaurora.org>
workqueue: don't use WQ_HIGHPRI for unbound workqueues

Unbound wqs aren't concurrency-managed and try to execute work items
as soon as possible.  This is currently achieved by implicitly setting
%WQ_HIGHPRI on all unbound workqueues; however, WQ_HIGHPRI
implementation is about to be restructured and this usage won't be
valid anymore.

Add an explicit chain-wakeup path for unbound workqueues in
process_one_work() instead of piggy backing on %WQ_HIGHPRI.

Change-Id: Iecd17a9935ee28f856d8b726bb4c296762922bed
Signed-off-by: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
Git-commit: 974271c485a4d8bb801decc616748f90aafb07ec
Git-repo: git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git
Signed-off-by: Matt Wagantall <mattw@codeaurora.org>
(cherry picked from commit 5b92cea36d8328c17380d7997744284707134397)