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Lock Statistics

What

As the name suggests, it provides statistics on locks.

Why

Because things like lock contention can severely impact performance.

How

Lockdep already has hooks in the lock functions and maps lock instances tolock classes. We build on that (seeRuntime locking correctness validator).The graph below shows the relation between the lock functions and the varioushooks therein:

      __acquire          |         lock _____          |        \          |    __contended          |         |          |       <wait>          | _______/          |/          |     __acquired          |          .        <hold>          .          |     __release          |       unlocklock, unlock  - the regular lock functions__*           - the hooks<>            - states

With these hooks we provide the following statistics:

con-bounces
  • number of lock contention that involved x-cpu data

contentions
  • number of lock acquisitions that had to wait

wait time
min
  • shortest (non-0) time we ever had to wait for a lock

max
  • longest time we ever had to wait for a lock

total
  • total time we spend waiting on this lock

avg
  • average time spent waiting on this lock

acq-bounces
  • number of lock acquisitions that involved x-cpu data

acquisitions
  • number of times we took the lock

hold time
min
  • shortest (non-0) time we ever held the lock

max
  • longest time we ever held the lock

total
  • total time this lock was held

avg
  • average time this lock was held

These numbers are gathered per lock class, per read/write state (whenapplicable).

It also tracks 4 contention points per class. A contention point is a call sitethat had to wait on lock acquisition.

Configuration

Lock statistics are enabled via CONFIG_LOCK_STAT.

Usage

Enable collection of statistics:

# echo 1 >/proc/sys/kernel/lock_stat

Disable collection of statistics:

# echo 0 >/proc/sys/kernel/lock_stat

Look at the current lock statistics:

( line numbers not part of actual output, done for clarity in the explanation  below )# less /proc/lock_stat01 lock_stat version 0.402-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------03                              class name    con-bounces    contentions   waittime-min   waittime-max waittime-total   waittime-avg    acq-bounces   acquisitions   holdtime-min   holdtime-max holdtime-total   holdtime-avg04-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------0506                         &mm->mmap_sem-W:            46             84           0.26         939.10       16371.53         194.90          47291        2922365           0.16     2220301.69 17464026916.32        5975.9907                         &mm->mmap_sem-R:            37            100           1.31      299502.61      325629.52        3256.30         212344       34316685           0.10        7744.91    95016910.20           2.7708                         ---------------09                           &mm->mmap_sem              1          [<ffffffff811502a7>] khugepaged_scan_mm_slot+0x57/0x28010                           &mm->mmap_sem             96          [<ffffffff815351c4>] __do_page_fault+0x1d4/0x51011                           &mm->mmap_sem             34          [<ffffffff81113d77>] vm_mmap_pgoff+0x87/0xd012                           &mm->mmap_sem             17          [<ffffffff81127e71>] vm_munmap+0x41/0x8013                         ---------------14                           &mm->mmap_sem              1          [<ffffffff81046fda>] dup_mmap+0x2a/0x3f015                           &mm->mmap_sem             60          [<ffffffff81129e29>] SyS_mprotect+0xe9/0x25016                           &mm->mmap_sem             41          [<ffffffff815351c4>] __do_page_fault+0x1d4/0x51017                           &mm->mmap_sem             68          [<ffffffff81113d77>] vm_mmap_pgoff+0x87/0xd01819.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................2021                         unix_table_lock:           110            112           0.21          49.24         163.91           1.46          21094          66312           0.12         624.42       31589.81           0.4822                         ---------------23                         unix_table_lock             45          [<ffffffff8150ad8e>] unix_create1+0x16e/0x1b024                         unix_table_lock             47          [<ffffffff8150b111>] unix_release_sock+0x31/0x25025                         unix_table_lock             15          [<ffffffff8150ca37>] unix_find_other+0x117/0x23026                         unix_table_lock              5          [<ffffffff8150a09f>] unix_autobind+0x11f/0x1b027                         ---------------28                         unix_table_lock             39          [<ffffffff8150b111>] unix_release_sock+0x31/0x25029                         unix_table_lock             49          [<ffffffff8150ad8e>] unix_create1+0x16e/0x1b030                         unix_table_lock             20          [<ffffffff8150ca37>] unix_find_other+0x117/0x23031                         unix_table_lock              4          [<ffffffff8150a09f>] unix_autobind+0x11f/0x1b0

This excerpt shows the first two lock class statistics. Line 01 shows theoutput version - each time the format changes this will be updated. Line 02-04show the header with column descriptions. Lines 05-18 and 20-31 show the actualstatistics. These statistics come in two parts; the actual stats separated by ashort separator (line 08, 13) from the contention points.

Lines 09-12 show the first 4 recorded contention points (the codewhich tries to get the lock) and lines 14-17 show the first 4 recordedcontended points (the lock holder). It is possible that the maxcon-bounces point is missing in the statistics.

The first lock (05-18) is a read/write lock, and shows two lines above theshort separator. The contention points don’t match the column descriptors,they have two: contentions and [<IP>] symbol. The second set of contentionpoints are the points we’re contending with.

The integer part of the time values is in us.

Dealing with nested locks, subclasses may appear:

32...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................3334                               &rq->lock:       13128          13128           0.43         190.53      103881.26           7.91          97454        3453404           0.00         401.11    13224683.11           3.8235                               ---------36                               &rq->lock          645          [<ffffffff8103bfc4>] task_rq_lock+0x43/0x7537                               &rq->lock          297          [<ffffffff8104ba65>] try_to_wake_up+0x127/0x25a38                               &rq->lock          360          [<ffffffff8103c4c5>] select_task_rq_fair+0x1f0/0x74a39                               &rq->lock          428          [<ffffffff81045f98>] scheduler_tick+0x46/0x1fb40                               ---------41                               &rq->lock           77          [<ffffffff8103bfc4>] task_rq_lock+0x43/0x7542                               &rq->lock          174          [<ffffffff8104ba65>] try_to_wake_up+0x127/0x25a43                               &rq->lock         4715          [<ffffffff8103ed4b>] double_rq_lock+0x42/0x5444                               &rq->lock          893          [<ffffffff81340524>] schedule+0x157/0x7b84546...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................4748                             &rq->lock/1:        1526          11488           0.33         388.73      136294.31          11.86          21461          38404           0.00          37.93      109388.53           2.8449                             -----------50                             &rq->lock/1        11526          [<ffffffff8103ed58>] double_rq_lock+0x4f/0x5451                             -----------52                             &rq->lock/1         5645          [<ffffffff8103ed4b>] double_rq_lock+0x42/0x5453                             &rq->lock/1         1224          [<ffffffff81340524>] schedule+0x157/0x7b854                             &rq->lock/1         4336          [<ffffffff8103ed58>] double_rq_lock+0x4f/0x5455                             &rq->lock/1          181          [<ffffffff8104ba65>] try_to_wake_up+0x127/0x25a

Line 48 shows statistics for the second subclass (/1) of &rq->lock class(subclass starts from 0), since in this case, as line 50 suggests,double_rq_lock actually acquires a nested lock of two spinlocks.

View the top contending locks:

# grep : /proc/lock_stat | head                      clockevents_lock:       2926159        2947636           0.15       46882.81  1784540466.34         605.41        3381345        3879161           0.00        2260.97    53178395.68          13.71                   tick_broadcast_lock:        346460         346717           0.18        2257.43    39364622.71         113.54        3642919        4242696           0.00        2263.79    49173646.60          11.59                &mapping->i_mmap_mutex:        203896         203899           3.36      645530.05 31767507988.39      155800.21        3361776        8893984           0.17        2254.15    14110121.02           1.59                             &rq->lock:        135014         136909           0.18         606.09      842160.68           6.15        1540728       10436146           0.00         728.72    17606683.41           1.69             &(&zone->lru_lock)->rlock:         93000          94934           0.16          59.18      188253.78           1.98        1199912        3809894           0.15         391.40     3559518.81           0.93                       tasklist_lock-W:         40667          41130           0.23        1189.42      428980.51          10.43         270278         510106           0.16         653.51     3939674.91           7.72                       tasklist_lock-R:         21298          21305           0.20        1310.05      215511.12          10.12         186204         241258           0.14        1162.33     1179779.23           4.89                            rcu_node_1:         47656          49022           0.16         635.41      193616.41           3.95         844888        1865423           0.00         764.26     1656226.96           0.89     &(&dentry->d_lockref.lock)->rlock:         39791          40179           0.15        1302.08       88851.96           2.21        2790851       12527025           0.10        1910.75     3379714.27           0.27                            rcu_node_0:         29203          30064           0.16         786.55     1555573.00          51.74          88963         244254           0.00         398.87      428872.51           1.76

Clear the statistics:

# echo 0 > /proc/lock_stat