[dpdk-dev] [PATCH] ring: guarantee ordering of cons/prod loading when doing enqueue/dequeue

Ananyev, Konstantin konstantin.ananyev at intel.com
Fri Oct 20 09:03:34 CEST 2017




> >>
> >>> Hi,
> >>>
> >>> On 2017/10/19 18:02, Ananyev, Konstantin wrote:
> >>>> Hi Jia,
> >>>>
> >>>>> Hi
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On 10/13/2017 9:02 AM, Jia He Wrote:
> >>>>>> Hi Jerin
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> On 10/13/2017 1:23 AM, Jerin Jacob Wrote:
> >>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
> >>>>>>>> Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2017 17:05:50 +0000
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>> [...]
> >>>>>>> On the same lines,
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Jia He, jie2.liu, bing.zhao,
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Is this patch based on code review or do you saw this issue on any of
> >>>>>>> the
> >>>>>>> arm/ppc target? arm64 will have performance impact with this change.
> >>>>> sorry, miss one important information
> >>>>> Our platform is an aarch64 server with 46 cpus.
> >>>>> If we reduced the involved cpu numbers, the bug occurred less frequently.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Yes, mb barrier impact the performance, but correctness is more
> >>>>> important, isn't it ;-)
> >>>>> Maybe we can  find any other lightweight barrier here?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Cheers,
> >>>>> Jia
> >>>>>> Based on mbuf_autotest, the rte_panic will be invoked in seconds.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> PANIC in test_refcnt_iter():
> >>>>>> (lcore=0, iter=0): after 10s only 61 of 64 mbufs left free
> >>>>>> 1: [./test(rte_dump_stack+0x38) [0x58d868]]
> >>>>>> Aborted (core dumped)
> >>>>>>
> >>>> So is it only reproducible with mbuf refcnt test?
> >>>> Could it be reproduced with some 'pure' ring test
> >>>> (no mempools/mbufs refcnt, etc.)?
> >>>> The reason I am asking - in that test we also have mbuf refcnt updates
> >>>> (that's what for that test was created) and we are doing some optimizations here too
> >>>> to avoid excessive atomic updates.
> >>>> BTW, if the problem is not reproducible without mbuf refcnt,
> >>>> can I suggest to extend the test  with:
> >>>>     - add a check that enqueue() operation was successful
> >>>>     - walk through the pool and check/printf refcnt of each mbuf.
> >>>> Hopefully that would give us some extra information what is going wrong here.
> >>>> Konstantin
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>> Currently, the issue is only found in this case here on the ARM
> >>> platform, not sure how it is going with the X86_64 platform
> >> I understand that it is only reproducible on arm so far.
> >> What I am asking - with dpdk is there any other way to reproduce it (on arm)
> >> except then running mbuf_autotest?
> >> Something really simple that not using mbuf/mempool etc?
> >> Just do dequeue/enqueue from multiple threads and check data integrity at the end?
> >> If not  - what makes you think that the problem is precisely in rte_ring code?
> >> Why not in rte_mbuf let say?
> > Actually I reread your original mail and finally get your point.
> > If I understand you correctly the problem with read reordering here is that
> > after we read prot.tail but before we read cons.head
> > both cons.head and prod.tail might be updated,
> > but for us prod.tail change might be unnoticed.
> > As an example:
> > time 0 (cons.head == 0, prod.tail == 0):
> > prod_tail = r->prod.tail; /* due read reordering */
> > /* prod_tail == 0 */
> >
> >   time 1 (cons.head ==5, prod.tail == 5):
> > *old_head = r->cons.head;
> > /* cons.head == 5 */
> > *entries = (prod_tail - *old_head);
> > /* *entries == (0 - 5) == 0xFFFFFFFB */
> >
> > And we will move our cons.head forward, even though there are no filled entries in the ring.
> > Is that right?
> Yes

Ok, thanks for your patience - it took me a while to understand what
you guys are talking about here.

> > As I side notice, I wonder why we have here:
> > *entries = (prod_tail - *old_head);
> > instead of:
> > *entries = r->size + prod_tail - *old_head;
> > ?
> Yes, I agree with you at this code line.
> But reordering will still mess up things even after this change(I have
> tested, still the same as before)

Yes, I am convinced now that rmb is necessary here :)
As I said this is just a different thing I noticed while looking at the code.
Probably should discuss it in a different thread.
Konstantin 

> I thought the *entries is a door to prevent consumer from moving forward
> too fast than the producer.
> But in some cases, it is correct that prod_tail is smaller than
> *old_head due to  the cirular queue.
> In other cases, it is incorrect because of read/read reordering.
> 
> AFAICT, the root cause here is the producer tail and cosumer head are
> dependant on each other.
> Thus a memory barrier is neccessary.
> 
> Cheers,
> Jia
> 
> >
> > Konstantin
> >
> >>> . In another
> >>> mail of this thread, we've made a simple test based on this and captured
> >>> some information and I pasted there.(I pasted the patch there :-))
> >> Are you talking about that one:
> >> http://dpdk.org/dev/patchwork/patch/30405/
> >> ?
> >> It still uses test/test/test_mbuf.c...,
> >> but anyway I don't really understand how mbuf_autotest supposed
> >> to work with these changes:
> >> @@ -730,7 +739,7 @@ test_refcnt_iter(unsigned int lcore, unsigned int iter,
> >> rte_ring_enqueue(refcnt_mbuf_ring, m);
> >>                           }
> >>                   }
> >> -               rte_pktmbuf_free(m);
> >> +               // rte_pktmbuf_free(m);
> >>           }
> >> @@ -741,6 +750,12 @@ test_refcnt_iter(unsigned int lcore, unsigned int iter,
> >>           while (!rte_ring_empty(refcnt_mbuf_ring))
> >>                   ;
> >>
> >> +       if (NULL != m) {
> >> +               if (1 != rte_mbuf_refcnt_read(m))
> >> +                       printf("m ref is %u\n", rte_mbuf_refcnt_read(m));
> >> +               rte_pktmbuf_free(m);
> >> +       }
> >> +
> >>           /* check that all mbufs are back into mempool by now */
> >>           for (wn = 0; wn != REFCNT_MAX_TIMEOUT; wn++) {
> >>                   if ((i = rte_mempool_avail_count(refcnt_pool)) == n) {
> >>
> >> That means all your mbufs (except the last one) will still be allocated.
> >> So the test would fail - as it should, I think.
> >>
> >>> And
> >>> it seems that Juhamatti & Jacod found some reverting action several
> >>> months ago.
> >> Didn't get that one either.
> >> Konstantin



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