futex: add requeue-pi documentation

Add Documentation/futex-requeue-pi.txt describing the motivation for the
newly added FUTEX_*REQUEUE_PI op codes and their implementation.

[ Impact: add documentation ]

Signed-off-by: Darren Hart <dvhltc@us.ibm.com>
Cc: Sripathi Kodi <sripathik@in.ibm.com>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: John Stultz <johnstul@us.ibm.com>
Cc: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
Cc: Dinakar Guniguntala <dino@in.ibm.com>
Cc: Ulrich Drepper <drepper@redhat.com>
Cc: Eric Dumazet <dada1@cosmosbay.com>
Cc: Jakub Jelinek <jakub@redhat.com>
LKML-Reference: <4A03634E.3080609@us.ibm.com>
[ reformatted the file ]
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>

1 files changed, 131 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/futex-requeue-pi.txt b/Documentation/futex-requeue-pi.txt
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..9dc1ff4fd53
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+++ b/Documentation/futex-requeue-pi.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,131 @@
+Futex Requeue PI
+----------------
+
+Requeueing of tasks from a non-PI futex to a PI futex requires
+special handling in order to ensure the underlying rt_mutex is never
+left without an owner if it has waiters; doing so would break the PI
+boosting logic [see rt-mutex-desgin.txt] For the purposes of
+brevity, this action will be referred to as "requeue_pi" throughout
+this document.  Priority inheritance is abbreviated throughout as
+"PI".
+
+Motivation
+----------
+
+Without requeue_pi, the glibc implementation of
+pthread_cond_broadcast() must resort to waking all the tasks waiting
+on a pthread_condvar and letting them try to sort out which task
+gets to run first in classic thundering-herd formation.  An ideal
+implementation would wake the highest-priority waiter, and leave the
+rest to the natural wakeup inherent in unlocking the mutex
+associated with the condvar.
+
+Consider the simplified glibc calls:
+
+/* caller must lock mutex */
+pthread_cond_wait(cond, mutex)
+{
+	lock(cond->__data.__lock);
+	unlock(mutex);
+	do {
+	   unlock(cond->__data.__lock);
+	   futex_wait(cond->__data.__futex);
+	   lock(cond->__data.__lock);
+	} while(...)
+	unlock(cond->__data.__lock);
+	lock(mutex);
+}
+
+pthread_cond_broadcast(cond)
+{
+	lock(cond->__data.__lock);
+	unlock(cond->__data.__lock);
+	futex_requeue(cond->data.__futex, cond->mutex);
+}
+
+Once pthread_cond_broadcast() requeues the tasks, the cond->mutex
+has waiters. Note that pthread_cond_wait() attempts to lock the
+mutex only after it has returned to user space.  This will leave the
+underlying rt_mutex with waiters, and no owner, breaking the
+previously mentioned PI-boosting algorithms.
+
+In order to support PI-aware pthread_condvar's, the kernel needs to
+be able to requeue tasks to PI futexes.  This support implies that
+upon a successful futex_wait system call, the caller would return to
+user space already holding the PI futex.  The glibc implementation
+would be modified as follows:
+
+
+/* caller must lock mutex */
+pthread_cond_wait_pi(cond, mutex)
+{
+	lock(cond->__data.__lock);
+	unlock(mutex);
+	do {
+	   unlock(cond->__data.__lock);
+	   futex_wait_requeue_pi(cond->__data.__futex);
+	   lock(cond->__data.__lock);
+	} while(...)
+	unlock(cond->__data.__lock);
+        /* the kernel acquired the the mutex for us */
+}
+
+pthread_cond_broadcast_pi(cond)
+{
+	lock(cond->__data.__lock);
+	unlock(cond->__data.__lock);
+	futex_requeue_pi(cond->data.__futex, cond->mutex);
+}
+
+The actual glibc implementation will likely test for PI and make the
+necessary changes inside the existing calls rather than creating new
+calls for the PI cases.  Similar changes are needed for
+pthread_cond_timedwait() and pthread_cond_signal().
+
+Implementation
+--------------
+
+In order to ensure the rt_mutex has an owner if it has waiters, it
+is necessary for both the requeue code, as well as the waiting code,
+to be able to acquire the rt_mutex before returning to user space.
+The requeue code cannot simply wake the waiter and leave it to
+acquire the rt_mutex as it would open a race window between the
+requeue call returning to user space and the waiter waking and
+starting to run.  This is especially true in the uncontended case.
+
+The solution involves two new rt_mutex helper routines,
+rt_mutex_start_proxy_lock() and rt_mutex_finish_proxy_lock(), which
+allow the requeue code to acquire an uncontended rt_mutex on behalf
+of the waiter and to enqueue the waiter on a contended rt_mutex.
+Two new system calls provide the kernel<->user interface to
+requeue_pi: FUTEX_WAIT_REQUEUE_PI and FUTEX_REQUEUE_CMP_PI.
+
+FUTEX_WAIT_REQUEUE_PI is called by the waiter (pthread_cond_wait()
+and pthread_cond_timedwait()) to block on the initial futex and wait
+to be requeued to a PI-aware futex.  The implementation is the
+result of a high-speed collision between futex_wait() and
+futex_lock_pi(), with some extra logic to check for the additional
+wake-up scenarios.
+
+FUTEX_REQUEUE_CMP_PI is called by the waker
+(pthread_cond_broadcast() and pthread_cond_signal()) to requeue and
+possibly wake the waiting tasks. Internally, this system call is
+still handled by futex_requeue (by passing requeue_pi=1).  Before
+requeueing, futex_requeue() attempts to acquire the requeue target
+PI futex on behalf of the top waiter.  If it can, this waiter is
+woken.  futex_requeue() then proceeds to requeue the remaining
+nr_wake+nr_requeue tasks to the PI futex, calling
+rt_mutex_start_proxy_lock() prior to each requeue to prepare the
+task as a waiter on the underlying rt_mutex.  It is possible that
+the lock can be acquired at this stage as well, if so, the next
+waiter is woken to finish the acquisition of the lock.
+
+FUTEX_REQUEUE_PI accepts nr_wake and nr_requeue as arguments, but
+their sum is all that really matters.  futex_requeue() will wake or
+requeue up to nr_wake + nr_requeue tasks.  It will wake only as many
+tasks as it can acquire the lock for, which in the majority of cases
+should be 0 as good programming practice dictates that the caller of
+either pthread_cond_broadcast() or pthread_cond_signal() acquire the
+mutex prior to making the call. FUTEX_REQUEUE_PI requires that
+nr_wake=1.  nr_requeue should be INT_MAX for broadcast and 0 for
+signal.