slub: remove one code path and reduce lock contention in __slab_free()

When we try to free object, there is some of case that we need
to take a node lock. This is the necessary step for preventing a race.
After taking a lock, then we try to cmpxchg_double_slab().
But, there is a possible scenario that cmpxchg_double_slab() is failed
with taking a lock. Following example explains it.

CPU A               CPU B
need lock
...                 need lock
...                 lock!!
lock..but spin      free success
spin...             unlock
lock!!
free fail

In this case, retry with taking a lock is occured in CPU A.
I think that in this case for CPU A,
"release a lock first, and re-take a lock if necessary" is preferable way.

There are two reasons for this.

First, this makes __slab_free()'s logic somehow simple.
With this patch, 'was_frozen = 1' is "always" handled without taking a lock.
So we can remove one code path.

Second, it may reduce lock contention.
When we do retrying, status of slab is already changed,
so we don't need a lock anymore in almost every case.
"release a lock first, and re-take a lock if necessary" policy is
helpful to this.

Signed-off-by: Joonsoo Kim <js1304@gmail.com>
Acked-by: Christoph Lameter <cl@linux.com>
Signed-off-by: Pekka Enberg <penberg@kernel.org>

1 files changed, 14 insertions, 20 deletions

diff --git a/mm/slub.c b/mm/slub.c
index a0d698467f70..e7aec2001ae5 100644
--- a/mm/slub.c
+++ b/mm/slub.c
@@ -2459,7 +2459,6 @@ static void __slab_free(struct kmem_cache *s, struct page *page,
         void *prior;
         void **object = (void *)x;
         int was_frozen;
-        int inuse;
         struct page new;
         unsigned long counters;
         struct kmem_cache_node *n = NULL;
@@ -2472,13 +2471,17 @@ static void __slab_free(struct kmem_cache *s, struct page *page,
                 return;
 
         do {
+                if (unlikely(n)) {
+                        spin_unlock_irqrestore(&n->list_lock, flags);
+                        n = NULL;
+                }
                 prior = page->freelist;
                 counters = page->counters;
                 set_freepointer(s, object, prior);
                 new.counters = counters;
                 was_frozen = new.frozen;
                 new.inuse--;
-                if ((!new.inuse || !prior) && !was_frozen && !n) {
+                if ((!new.inuse || !prior) && !was_frozen) {
 
                         if (!kmem_cache_debug(s) && !prior)
 
@@ -2503,7 +2506,6 @@ static void __slab_free(struct kmem_cache *s, struct page *page,
 
                         }
                 }
-                inuse = new.inuse;
 
         } while (!cmpxchg_double_slab(s, page,
                 prior, counters,
@@ -2529,25 +2531,17 @@ static void __slab_free(struct kmem_cache *s, struct page *page,
                 return;
         }
 
+        if (unlikely(!new.inuse && n->nr_partial > s->min_partial))
+                goto slab_empty;
+
         /*
-         * was_frozen may have been set after we acquired the list_lock in
-         * an earlier loop. So we need to check it here again.
+         * Objects left in the slab. If it was not on the partial list before
+         * then add it.
          */
-        if (was_frozen)
-                stat(s, FREE_FROZEN);
-        else {
-                if (unlikely(!inuse && n->nr_partial > s->min_partial))
-                        goto slab_empty;
-
-                /*
-                 * Objects left in the slab. If it was not on the partial list before
-                 * then add it.
-                 */
-                if (unlikely(!prior)) {
-                        remove_full(s, page);
-                        add_partial(n, page, DEACTIVATE_TO_TAIL);
-                        stat(s, FREE_ADD_PARTIAL);
-                }
+        if (kmem_cache_debug(s) && unlikely(!prior)) {
+                remove_full(s, page);
+                add_partial(n, page, DEACTIVATE_TO_TAIL);
+                stat(s, FREE_ADD_PARTIAL);
         }
         spin_unlock_irqrestore(&n->list_lock, flags);
         return;