Switch pfil(9) to rmlocks

[Max Laier]

On Sunday 25 November 2007, Darren Reed wrote:
> Max Laier wrote:
> > On Sunday 25 November 2007, Darren Reed wrote:
> > > Max Laier wrote:
> > > > On Friday 23 November 2007, Robert Watson wrote:
> > > > > On Fri, 23 Nov 2007, Max Laier wrote:
> > > > > > attached is a diff to switch the pfil(9) subsystem to
> > > > > > rmlocks, which are more suited for the task.  I'd like some
> > > > > > exposure before doing the switch, but I don't expect any
> > > > > > fallout.  This email is going through the patched pfil
> > > > > > already - twice.
> > > > >
> > > > > Max,
> > > > >
> > > > > Have you done performance measurements that show rmlocks to be
> > > > > a win in this scenario?  I did some patchs for UNIX domain
> > > > > sockets to replace the rwlock there but it appeared not to have
> > > > > a measurable impact on SQL benchmarks, presumbaly because the
> > > > > read/write blend wasn't right and/or that wasnt a significant
> > > > > source of overhead in the benchmark.  I'd anticipate a much
> > > > > more measurable improvement for pfil, but would be interested
> > > > > in learning how much is seen?
> > > >
> > > > I had to roll an artificial benchmark in order to see a
> > > > significant change (attached - it's a hack!).
> > > >
> > > > Using 3 threads on a 4 CPU machine I get the following results:
> > > > null hook: ~13% +/- 2
> > > > mtx hook: up to 40% [*]
> > > > rw hook: ~5% +/- 1
> > > > rm hook: ~35% +/- 5
> > >
> > > Is that 13%/5%/35% faster or slower or improvement or degradation?
> > > If "rw hook" (using rwlock like we have today?) is 5%, whas is the
> > > baseline?
> > >
> > > I'm expecting that at least one of these should be a 0%...
> >
> > Sorry for the sparse explanation.  All numbers above are gain with
> > rmlocks i.e. rmlocks are faster in all scenarios.  The test cases are
> > different hook functions.  Every hook has a DELAY(1) and a
> > lock/unlock call around it of the respective lock type.  read lock
> > acquisitions for rw and rm. Please look at the code I posted a bit
> > later for more details.
>
> Thanks for the clarification.
> That makes rmlocks very interesting.
> And the kind of lock that both ipf and ipfw could benefit from,
> especially since you're planning on changing the pfil locks to be
> this way.  Are you (or is someone else?) intending on following
> up moving ipfw to them, where appropriate?

It's unclear yet, where they are appropriate.  As the name suggests (read 
mostly locks) they are for cases where you acquire a write lock only once 
in a blue moon.  As such the write lock acquisition is a very expensive 
operation.  This might be appropriate for some cases of IPFW rulesets, 
but certainly not the general case.  Things like address tables and 
dynamic rules (states) take a lot of writes.  It's not yet clear where 
the balance for rmlocks really is and my benchmark doesn't answer that.

For pfil the case is obvious as you hardly ever change the hooks.

> I'm tempted to suggest them to other platforms...although I'd expect
> some amount nay-saying because of NIH, it would be good if others
> also picked up on them, if the benefits are this clear cut...

Again ... only for a select set of cases.  But they are really great for 
cases where you don't want to use proper synchronization because of the 
slow down and the relative small chance of ever hitting the race.  Now we 
have a tool to properly protect against these races without sacrificing 
performance.

-- 
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