[dpdk-dev] [PATCH 03/21] vhost: protect virtio_net device struct

[Tiwei Bie]

On Tue, Sep 05, 2017 at 01:00:42PM +0200, Maxime Coquelin wrote:
> On 09/05/2017 12:07 PM, Tiwei Bie wrote:
> > On Tue, Sep 05, 2017 at 11:24:14AM +0200, Maxime Coquelin wrote:
> > > On 09/05/2017 06:45 AM, Tiwei Bie wrote:
> > > > On Thu, Aug 31, 2017 at 11:50:05AM +0200, Maxime Coquelin wrote:
> > > > > virtio_net device might be accessed while being reallocated
> > > > > in case of NUMA awareness. This case might be theoretical,
> > > > > but it will be needed anyway to protect vrings pages against
> > > > > invalidation.
> > > > > 
> > > > > The virtio_net devs are now protected with a readers/writers
> > > > > lock, so that before reallocating the device, it is ensured
> > > > > that it is not being referenced by the processing threads.
> > > > > 
> > > > [...]
> > > > > +struct virtio_net *
> > > > > +get_device(int vid)
> > > > > +{
> > > > > +	struct virtio_net *dev;
> > > > > +
> > > > > +	rte_rwlock_read_lock(&vhost_devices[vid].lock);
> > > > > +
> > > > > +	dev = __get_device(vid);
> > > > > +	if (unlikely(!dev))
> > > > > +		rte_rwlock_read_unlock(&vhost_devices[vid].lock);
> > > > > +
> > > > > +	return dev;
> > > > > +}
> > > > > +
> > > > > +void
> > > > > +put_device(int vid)
> > > > > +{
> > > > > +	rte_rwlock_read_unlock(&vhost_devices[vid].lock);
> > > > > +}
> > > > > +
> > > > 
> > > > This patch introduced a per-device rwlock which needs to be acquired
> > > > unconditionally in the data path. So for each vhost device, the IO
> > > > threads of different queues will need to acquire/release this lock
> > > > during each enqueue and dequeue operation, which will cause cache
> > > > contention when multiple queues are enabled and handled by different
> > > > cores. With this patch alone, I saw ~7% performance drop when enabling
> > > > 6 queues to do 64bytes iofwd loopback test. Is there any way to avoid
> > > > introducing this lock to the data path?
> > > 
> > > First, I'd like to thank you for running the MQ test.
> > > I agree it may have a performance impact in this case.
> > > 
> > > This lock has currently two purposes:
> > > 1. Prevent referencing freed virtio_dev struct in case of numa_realloc.
> > > 2. Protect vring pages against invalidation.
> > > 
> > > For 2., it can be fixed by using the per-vq IOTLB lock (it was not the
> > > case in my early prototypes that had per device IOTLB cache).
> > > 
> > > For 1., this is an existing problem, so we might consider it is
> > > acceptable to keep current state. Maybe it could be improved by only
> > > reallocating in case VQ0 is not on the right NUMA node, the other VQs
> > > not being initialized at this point.
> > > 
> > > If we do this we might be able to get rid of this lock, I need some more
> > > time though to ensure I'm not missing something.
> > > 
> > > What do you think?
> > > 
> > 
> > Cool. So it's possible that the lock in the data path will be
> > acquired only when the IOMMU feature is enabled. It will be
> > great!
> > 
> > Besides, I just did a very simple MQ test to verify my thoughts.
> > Lei (CC'ed in this mail) may do a thorough performance test for
> > this patch set to evaluate the performance impacts.
> 
> I'll try to post v2 this week including the proposed change.
> Maybe it'll be better Lei waits for the v2.
> 

Cool. Sure. Thank you! :)

Best regards,
Tiwei Bie