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author | André Fabian Silva Delgado <emulatorman@parabola.nu> | 2015-08-05 17:04:01 -0300 |
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committer | André Fabian Silva Delgado <emulatorman@parabola.nu> | 2015-08-05 17:04:01 -0300 |
commit | 57f0f512b273f60d52568b8c6b77e17f5636edc0 (patch) | |
tree | 5e910f0e82173f4ef4f51111366a3f1299037a7b /Documentation/vm/split_page_table_lock |
Initial import
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/vm/split_page_table_lock')
-rw-r--r-- | Documentation/vm/split_page_table_lock | 94 |
1 files changed, 94 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/vm/split_page_table_lock b/Documentation/vm/split_page_table_lock new file mode 100644 index 000000000..6dea4fd5c --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/vm/split_page_table_lock @@ -0,0 +1,94 @@ +Split page table lock +===================== + +Originally, mm->page_table_lock spinlock protected all page tables of the +mm_struct. But this approach leads to poor page fault scalability of +multi-threaded applications due high contention on the lock. To improve +scalability, split page table lock was introduced. + +With split page table lock we have separate per-table lock to serialize +access to the table. At the moment we use split lock for PTE and PMD +tables. Access to higher level tables protected by mm->page_table_lock. + +There are helpers to lock/unlock a table and other accessor functions: + - pte_offset_map_lock() + maps pte and takes PTE table lock, returns pointer to the taken + lock; + - pte_unmap_unlock() + unlocks and unmaps PTE table; + - pte_alloc_map_lock() + allocates PTE table if needed and take the lock, returns pointer + to taken lock or NULL if allocation failed; + - pte_lockptr() + returns pointer to PTE table lock; + - pmd_lock() + takes PMD table lock, returns pointer to taken lock; + - pmd_lockptr() + returns pointer to PMD table lock; + +Split page table lock for PTE tables is enabled compile-time if +CONFIG_SPLIT_PTLOCK_CPUS (usually 4) is less or equal to NR_CPUS. +If split lock is disabled, all tables guaded by mm->page_table_lock. + +Split page table lock for PMD tables is enabled, if it's enabled for PTE +tables and the architecture supports it (see below). + +Hugetlb and split page table lock +--------------------------------- + +Hugetlb can support several page sizes. We use split lock only for PMD +level, but not for PUD. + +Hugetlb-specific helpers: + - huge_pte_lock() + takes pmd split lock for PMD_SIZE page, mm->page_table_lock + otherwise; + - huge_pte_lockptr() + returns pointer to table lock; + +Support of split page table lock by an architecture +--------------------------------------------------- + +There's no need in special enabling of PTE split page table lock: +everything required is done by pgtable_page_ctor() and pgtable_page_dtor(), +which must be called on PTE table allocation / freeing. + +Make sure the architecture doesn't use slab allocator for page table +allocation: slab uses page->slab_cache and page->first_page for its pages. +These fields share storage with page->ptl. + +PMD split lock only makes sense if you have more than two page table +levels. + +PMD split lock enabling requires pgtable_pmd_page_ctor() call on PMD table +allocation and pgtable_pmd_page_dtor() on freeing. + +Allocation usually happens in pmd_alloc_one(), freeing in pmd_free() and +pmd_free_tlb(), but make sure you cover all PMD table allocation / freeing +paths: i.e X86_PAE preallocate few PMDs on pgd_alloc(). + +With everything in place you can set CONFIG_ARCH_ENABLE_SPLIT_PMD_PTLOCK. + +NOTE: pgtable_page_ctor() and pgtable_pmd_page_ctor() can fail -- it must +be handled properly. + +page->ptl +--------- + +page->ptl is used to access split page table lock, where 'page' is struct +page of page containing the table. It shares storage with page->private +(and few other fields in union). + +To avoid increasing size of struct page and have best performance, we use a +trick: + - if spinlock_t fits into long, we use page->ptr as spinlock, so we + can avoid indirect access and save a cache line. + - if size of spinlock_t is bigger then size of long, we use page->ptl as + pointer to spinlock_t and allocate it dynamically. This allows to use + split lock with enabled DEBUG_SPINLOCK or DEBUG_LOCK_ALLOC, but costs + one more cache line for indirect access; + +The spinlock_t allocated in pgtable_page_ctor() for PTE table and in +pgtable_pmd_page_ctor() for PMD table. + +Please, never access page->ptl directly -- use appropriate helper. |