Re: git: 40a42785dbba - main - fcntl(F_SETFL): only allow one thread to perform F_SETFL

From: John Baldwin <jhb_at_FreeBSD.org>
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2025 17:42:34 UTC
On 9/22/25 13:40, Mateusz Guzik wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 22, 2025 at 7:39 PM John Baldwin <jhb@freebsd.org> wrote:
>>
>> On 9/22/25 04:54, Mateusz Guzik wrote:
>>> On Mon, Sep 22, 2025 at 10:41 AM John Baldwin <jhb@freebsd.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 9/19/25 10:19, Konstantin Belousov wrote:
>>>>> The branch main has been updated by kib:
>>>>>
>>>>> URL: https://cgit.FreeBSD.org/src/commit/?id=40a42785dbba93cc5196178fc49d340c1a89cabe
>>>>>
>>>>> commit 40a42785dbba93cc5196178fc49d340c1a89cabe
>>>>> Author:     Konstantin Belousov <kib@FreeBSD.org>
>>>>> AuthorDate: 2025-09-11 10:05:04 +0000
>>>>> Commit:     Konstantin Belousov <kib@FreeBSD.org>
>>>>> CommitDate: 2025-09-19 14:19:13 +0000
>>>>>
>>>>>        fcntl(F_SETFL): only allow one thread to perform F_SETFL
>>>>>
>>>>>        Use f_vflags file locking for this.
>>>>>        Allowing more than one thread handling F_SETFL might cause de-sync
>>>>>        between real driver state and flags.
>>>>>
>>>>>        Reviewed by:    markj
>>>>>        Tested by:      pho
>>>>>        Sponsored by:   The FreeBSD Foundation
>>>>>        MFC after:      2 weeks
>>>>>        Differential revision:  https://reviews.freebsd.org/D52487
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for fixing this.  I still slightly worry that "home-grown" locks
>>>> aren't visible to WITNESS and it's checking.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Another problem with these is that they don't do adaptive spinning.
>>>
>>> In particular for file offset, it *is* putting threads off cpu in real
>>> workloads when it plausibly could be avoided.
>>>
>>> I think the real thing to do here is to drop the hand-rolled machinery
>>> and use an sx lock.
>>>
>>> Currently struct file is 80 bytes which is a very nasty size from
>>> caching standpoint.
>>>
>>> Locks are 32 bytes in size, which is another problem, but ultimately
>>> one can be added here without growing the struct past 128 bytes.
>>>
>>> The only issue here is that files are marked as NOFREE, so this memory
>>> can *never* be reclaimed.
>>>
>>> One could be tempted to use smr here, but the cost of smr_enter is
>>> prohibitive. There is a lazy variant which does not do atomics, which
>>> perhaps could work, but that 0 users in the tree and was probably
>>> never tested.
>>>
>>> With 32-bit archs going away I don't think it's a big deal though.
>>>
>>> For interested, on Linux the struct is 256 bytes.
>>
>> I had suggested in an earlier review adding an sx-pool similar to our
>> existing mtxpool and using that.  That would avoid bloating the structure
>> with a dedicated lock.
>>
> 
> Per my previous e-mail the offset lock is already contested.
> 
> Using a pool over a lock embedded into the struct would hinder performance.
> 
> I explained why I don't consider embedding sx into struct file to be a problem.

Fair enough.  Certainly simpler.

-- 
John Baldwin