[dpdk-dev] [PATCH 1/2] eal: add macro to mark variable mostly read only

[Ferruh Yigit]

On 4/18/2018 6:55 PM, Pavan Nikhilesh wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 06:43:11PM +0100, Ferruh Yigit wrote:
>> On 4/18/2018 4:30 PM, Pavan Nikhilesh wrote:
>>> Add macro to mark a variable to be mostly read only and place it in a
>>> separate section.
>>>
>>> Signed-off-by: Pavan Nikhilesh <pbhagavatula at caviumnetworks.com>
>>> ---
>>>
>>>  Group together mostly read only data to avoid cacheline bouncing, also
>>>  useful for auditing purposes.
>>>
>>>  lib/librte_eal/common/include/rte_common.h | 5 +++++
>>>  1 file changed, 5 insertions(+)
>>>
>>> diff --git a/lib/librte_eal/common/include/rte_common.h b/lib/librte_eal/common/include/rte_common.h
>>> index 6c5bc5a76..f2ff2e9e6 100644
>>> --- a/lib/librte_eal/common/include/rte_common.h
>>> +++ b/lib/librte_eal/common/include/rte_common.h
>>> @@ -114,6 +114,11 @@ static void __attribute__((constructor(prio), used)) func(void)
>>>   */
>>>  #define __rte_noinline  __attribute__((noinline))
>>>
>>> +/**
>>> + * Mark a variable to be mostly read only and place it in a separate section.
>>> + */
>>> +#define __rte_read_mostly __attribute__((__section__(".read_mostly")))
>>
> 
> Hi Ferruh,
> 
>> Hi Pavan,
>>
>> Is the section ".read_mostly" treated specially [1] or is this just for grouping
>> symbols together (to reduce cacheline bouncing)?
> 
> The section .read_mostly is not treated specially it's just for grouping
> symbols.

I have encounter with a blog post claiming this is not working:

"
The problem with the above approach is that once all the __read_mostly variables
are grouped into one section, the remaining "non-read-mostly" variables end-up
together too. This increases the chances that two frequently used elements (in
the "non-read-mostly" region) will end-up competing for the same position (or
cache-line, the basic fixed-sized block for memory<-->cache transfers) in the
cache. Thus frequent accesses will cause excessive cache thrashing on that
particular cache-line thereby degrading the overall system performance.
"

https://thecodeartist.blogspot.com/2011/12/why-readmostly-does-not-work-as-it.html

> 
>>
>> [1]
>> If this is special section, can you please point counter part in the kernel?
> 
> The kernel has something similar[1] but they have a custom linker script to
> arrange symbols.
> 
> [1] https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/a27fc14219f2e3c4a46ba9177b04d9b52c875532/arch/x86/include/asm/cache.h#L11
> kernel commit id 54cb27a71f51d304342c79e62fd7667f2171062b
> 
>>
>>
>>> +
>>>  /*********** Macros for pointer arithmetic ********/
>>>
>>>  /**
>>> --
>>> 2.17.0
>>>
>>