sys_membarrier(): system-wide memory barrier (generic, x86)

Here is an implementation of a new system call, sys_membarrier(), which
executes a memory barrier on all threads running on the system.  It is
implemented by calling synchronize_sched().  It can be used to
distribute the cost of user-space memory barriers asymmetrically by
transforming pairs of memory barriers into pairs consisting of
sys_membarrier() and a compiler barrier.  For synchronization primitives
that distinguish between read-side and write-side (e.g.  userspace RCU
[1], rwlocks), the read-side can be accelerated significantly by moving
the bulk of the memory barrier overhead to the write-side.

The existing applications of which I am aware that would be improved by
this system call are as follows:

* Through Userspace RCU library (http://urcu.so)
  - DNS server (Knot DNS) https://www.knot-dns.cz/
  - Network sniffer (http://netsniff-ng.org/)
  - Distributed object storage (https://sheepdog.github.io/sheepdog/)
  - User-space tracing (http://lttng.org)
  - Network storage system (https://www.gluster.org/)
  - Virtual routers (https://events.linuxfoundation.org/sites/events/files/slides/DPDK_RCU_0MQ.pdf)
  - Financial software (https://lkml.org/lkml/2015/3/23/189)

Those projects use RCU in userspace to increase read-side speed and
scalability compared to locking.  Especially in the case of RCU used by
libraries, sys_membarrier can speed up the read-side by moving the bulk of
the memory barrier cost to synchronize_rcu().

* Direct users of sys_membarrier
  - core dotnet garbage collector (https://github.com/dotnet/coreclr/issues/198)

Microsoft core dotnet GC developers are planning to use the mprotect()
side-effect of issuing memory barriers through IPIs as a way to implement
Windows FlushProcessWriteBuffers() on Linux.  They are referring to
sys_membarrier in their github thread, specifically stating that
sys_membarrier() is what they are looking for.

To explain the benefit of this scheme, let's introduce two example threads:

Thread A (non-frequent, e.g. executing liburcu synchronize_rcu())
Thread B (frequent, e.g. executing liburcu
rcu_read_lock()/rcu_read_unlock())

In a scheme where all smp_mb() in thread A are ordering memory accesses
with respect to smp_mb() present in Thread B, we can change each
smp_mb() within Thread A into calls to sys_membarrier() and each
smp_mb() within Thread B into compiler barriers "barrier()".

Before the change, we had, for each smp_mb() pairs:

Thread A                    Thread B
previous mem accesses       previous mem accesses
smp_mb()                    smp_mb()
following mem accesses      following mem accesses

After the change, these pairs become:

Thread A                    Thread B
prev mem accesses           prev mem accesses
sys_membarrier()            barrier()
follow mem accesses         follow mem accesses

As we can see, there are two possible scenarios: either Thread B memory
accesses do not happen concurrently with Thread A accesses (1), or they
do (2).

1) Non-concurrent Thread A vs Thread B accesses:

Thread A                    Thread B
prev mem accesses
sys_membarrier()
follow mem accesses
                            prev mem accesses
                            barrier()
                            follow mem accesses

In this case, thread B accesses will be weakly ordered. This is OK,
because at that point, thread A is not particularly interested in
ordering them with respect to its own accesses.

2) Concurrent Thread A vs Thread B accesses

Thread A                    Thread B
prev mem accesses           prev mem accesses
sys_membarrier()            barrier()
follow mem accesses         follow mem accesses

In this case, thread B accesses, which are ensured to be in program
order thanks to the compiler barrier, will be "upgraded" to full
smp_mb() by synchronize_sched().

* Benchmarks

On Intel Xeon E5405 (8 cores)
(one thread is calling sys_membarrier, the other 7 threads are busy
looping)

1000 non-expedited sys_membarrier calls in 33s =3D 33 milliseconds/call.

* User-space user of this system call: Userspace RCU library

Both the signal-based and the sys_membarrier userspace RCU schemes
permit us to remove the memory barrier from the userspace RCU
rcu_read_lock() and rcu_read_unlock() primitives, thus significantly
accelerating them. These memory barriers are replaced by compiler
barriers on the read-side, and all matching memory barriers on the
write-side are turned into an invocation of a memory barrier on all
active threads in the process. By letting the kernel perform this
synchronization rather than dumbly sending a signal to every process
threads (as we currently do), we diminish the number of unnecessary wake
ups and only issue the memory barriers on active threads. Non-running
threads do not need to execute such barrier anyway, because these are
implied by the scheduler context switches.

Results in liburcu:

Operations in 10s, 6 readers, 2 writers:

memory barriers in reader:    1701557485 reads, 2202847 writes
signal-based scheme:          9830061167 reads,    6700 writes
sys_membarrier:               9952759104 reads,     425 writes
sys_membarrier (dyn. check):  7970328887 reads,     425 writes

The dynamic sys_membarrier availability check adds some overhead to
the read-side compared to the signal-based scheme, but besides that,
sys_membarrier slightly outperforms the signal-based scheme. However,
this non-expedited sys_membarrier implementation has a much slower grace
period than signal and memory barrier schemes.

Besides diminishing the number of wake-ups, one major advantage of the
membarrier system call over the signal-based scheme is that it does not
need to reserve a signal. This plays much more nicely with libraries,
and with processes injected into for tracing purposes, for which we
cannot expect that signals will be unused by the application.

An expedited version of this system call can be added later on to speed
up the grace period. Its implementation will likely depend on reading
the cpu_curr()->mm without holding each CPU's rq lock.

This patch adds the system call to x86 and to asm-generic.

[1] http://urcu.so

membarrier(2) man page:

MEMBARRIER(2)              Linux Programmer's Manual             MEMBARRIER(2)

NAME
       membarrier - issue memory barriers on a set of threads

SYNOPSIS
       #include <linux/membarrier.h>

       int membarrier(int cmd, int flags);

DESCRIPTION
       The cmd argument is one of the following:

       MEMBARRIER_CMD_QUERY
              Query  the  set  of  supported commands. It returns a bitmask of
              supported commands.

       MEMBARRIER_CMD_SHARED
              Execute a memory barrier on all threads running on  the  system.
              Upon  return from system call, the caller thread is ensured that
              all running threads have passed through a state where all memory
              accesses  to  user-space  addresses  match program order between
              entry to and return from the system  call  (non-running  threads
              are de facto in such a state). This covers threads from all pro=E2=80=90
              cesses running on the system.  This command returns 0.

       The flags argument needs to be 0. For future extensions.

       All memory accesses performed  in  program  order  from  each  targeted
       thread is guaranteed to be ordered with respect to sys_membarrier(). If
       we use the semantic "barrier()" to represent a compiler barrier forcing
       memory  accesses  to  be performed in program order across the barrier,
       and smp_mb() to represent explicit memory barriers forcing full  memory
       ordering  across  the barrier, we have the following ordering table for
       each pair of barrier(), sys_membarrier() and smp_mb():

       The pair ordering is detailed as (O: ordered, X: not ordered):

                              barrier()   smp_mb() sys_membarrier()
              barrier()          X           X            O
              smp_mb()           X           O            O
              sys_membarrier()   O           O            O

RETURN VALUE
       On success, these system calls return zero.  On error, -1 is  returned,
       and errno is set appropriately. For a given command, with flags
       argument set to 0, this system call is guaranteed to always return the
       same value until reboot.

ERRORS
       ENOSYS System call is not implemented.

       EINVAL Invalid arguments.

Linux                             2015-04-15                     MEMBARRIER(2)

Signed-off-by: Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@efficios.com>
Reviewed-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Reviewed-by: Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org>
Cc: KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@jp.fujitsu.com>
Cc: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
Cc: Nicholas Miell <nmiell@comcast.net>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>
Cc: Alan Cox <gnomes@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
Cc: Lai Jiangshan <laijs@cn.fujitsu.com>
Cc: Stephen Hemminger <stephen@networkplumber.org>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
Cc: Pranith Kumar <bobby.prani@gmail.com>
Cc: Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
Cc: Shuah Khan <shuahkh@osg.samsung.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>

1 files changed, 3 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/kernel/sys_ni.c b/kernel/sys_ni.c
index 03c3875d9958..a02decf15583 100644
--- a/kernel/sys_ni.c
+++ b/kernel/sys_ni.c
@@ -245,3 +245,6 @@ cond_syscall(sys_bpf);
 
 /* execveat */
 cond_syscall(sys_execveat);
+
+/* membarrier */
+cond_syscall(sys_membarrier);