Re: bl_list and lockdep

[Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>]

Dave,

On Tue, Apr 13 2021 at 08:15, Dave Chinner wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 12, 2021 at 05:20:53PM +0200, Thomas Gleixner wrote:
>> On Wed, Apr 07 2021 at 07:22, Dave Chinner wrote:
>> > And, FWIW, I'm also aware of the problems that RT kernels have with
>> > the use of bit spinlocks and being unable to turn them into sleeping
>> > mutexes by preprocessor magic. I don't care about that either,
>> > because dentry cache...
>> 
>> In the dentry cache it's a non-issue.
>
> Incorrect.

I'm impressed about your detailed knowledge of something you do not care
about in the first place.

>> RT does not have a problem with bit spinlocks per se, it depends on how
>> they are used and what nests inside. Most of them are just kept as bit
>> spinlocks because the lock held, and therefore preempt disabled times
>> are small and no other on RT conflicting operations happen inside.
>> 
>> In the case at hand this is going to be a problem because inode->i_lock
>> nests inside the bit spinlock and we can't make inode->i_lock a raw
>> spinlock because it protects way heavier weight code pathes as well.
>
> Yes, that's exactly the "problem" I'm refering to. And I don't care,
> precisely because, well, dentry cache....
>
> THat is, the dcache calls wake_up_all() from under the
> hlist_bl_lock() in __d_lookup_done(). That ends up in
> __wake_up_common_lock() which takes a spin lock embedded inside a
> wait_queue_head.  That's not a raw spinlock, either, so we already
> have this "spinlock inside bit lock" situation with the dcache usage
> of hlist_bl.

Sure, but you are missing that RT solves that by substituting the
wait_queue with a swait_queue, which does not suffer from that. But that
can't be done for the inode::i_lock case for various reasons.

> FYI, this dentry cache behaviour was added to the dentry cache in
> 2016 by commit d9171b934526 ("parallel lookups machinery, part 4
> (and last)"), so it's not like it's a new thing, either.

Really? I wasn't aware of that. Thanks for the education.

> If you want to make hlist_bl RT safe, then re-implement it behind
> the scenes for RT enabled kernels. All it takes is more memory
> usage for the hash table + locks, but that's something that non-RT
> people should not be burdened with caring about....

I'm well aware that anything outside of @fromorbit universe is not
interesting to you, but I neverless want to take the opportunity to
express my appreciation for your truly caring and collaborative attitude
versus interests of others who unfortunately do no share that universe.

Thanks,

        tglx