linux/tools/lib/api/fs
Stephane Eranian c6fddb28ba tools api fs: Make xxx__mountpoint() more scalable
The xxx_mountpoint() interface provided by fs.c finds mount points for
common pseudo filesystems. The first time xxx_mountpoint() is invoked,
it scans the mount table (/proc/mounts) looking for a match. If found,
it is cached. The price to scan /proc/mounts is paid once if the mount
is found.

When the mount point is not found, subsequent calls to xxx_mountpoint()
scan /proc/mounts over and over again.  There is no caching.

This causes a scaling issue in perf record with hugeltbfs__mountpoint().
The function is called for each process found in
synthesize__mmap_events().  If the machine has thousands of processes
and if the /proc/mounts has many entries this could cause major overhead
in perf record. We have observed multi-second slowdowns on some
configurations.

As an example on a laptop:

Before:

  $ sudo umount /dev/hugepages
  $ strace -e trace=openat -o /tmp/tt perf record -a ls
  $ fgrep mounts /tmp/tt
  285

After:

  $ sudo umount /dev/hugepages
  $ strace -e trace=openat -o /tmp/tt perf record -a ls
  $ fgrep mounts /tmp/tt
  1

One could argue that the non-caching in case the moint point is not
found is intentional. That way subsequent calls may discover a moint
point if the sysadmin mounts the filesystem. But the same argument could
be made against caching the mount point. It could be unmounted causing
errors.  It all depends on the intent of the interface. This patch
assumes it is expected to scan /proc/mounts once. The patch documents
the caching behavior in the fs.h header file.

An alternative would be to just fix perf record. But it would solve the
problem with hugetlbs__mountpoint() but there could be similar issues
(possibly down the line) with other xxx_mountpoint() calls in perf or
other tools.

Signed-off-by: Stephane Eranian <eranian@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Ian Rogers <irogers@google.com>
Acked-by: Jiri Olsa <jolsa@redhat.com>
Cc: Alexander Shishkin <alexander.shishkin@linux.intel.com>
Cc: Andrey Zhizhikin <andrey.z@gmail.com>
Cc: Kan Liang <kan.liang@linux.intel.com>
Cc: Kefeng Wang <wangkefeng.wang@huawei.com>
Cc: Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com>
Cc: Namhyung Kim <namhyung@kernel.org>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Link: http://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20200402154357.107873-3-irogers@google.com
Signed-off-by: Ian Rogers <irogers@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@redhat.com>
2020-04-16 12:19:12 -03:00
..
Build tools lib api fs: Move cgroupsfs_find_mountpoint() 2020-03-04 10:34:09 -03:00
cgroup.c tools lib api fs: Move cgroupsfs_find_mountpoint() 2020-03-04 10:34:09 -03:00
fs.c tools api fs: Make xxx__mountpoint() more scalable 2020-04-16 12:19:12 -03:00
fs.h tools api fs: Make xxx__mountpoint() more scalable 2020-04-16 12:19:12 -03:00
tracing_path.c perf tools: Fix tracing_path_mount proper path 2018-10-16 12:27:46 -03:00
tracing_path.h tools lib api fs tracing_path: Make tracing_events_path private 2018-05-17 14:51:23 -03:00