Re: [PATCH 1/4] bio: add allocation cache abstraction

[Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk>]

On 8/10/21 7:15 AM, Ming Lei wrote:
> Hi Jens,
> 
> On Mon, Aug 09, 2021 at 03:23:58PM -0600, Jens Axboe wrote:
>> Add a set of helpers that can encapsulate bio allocations, reusing them
>> as needed. Caller must provide the necessary locking, if any is needed.
>> The primary intended use case is polled IO from io_uring, which will not
>> need any external locking.
>>
>> Very simple - keeps a count of bio's in the cache, and maintains a max
>> of 512 with a slack of 64. If we get above max + slack, we drop slack
>> number of bio's.
>>
>> The cache is intended to be per-task, and the user will need to supply
>> the storage for it. As io_uring will be the only user right now, provide
>> a hook that returns the cache there. Stub it out as NULL initially.
> 
> Is it possible for user space to submit & poll IO from different io_uring
> tasks?
> 
> Then one bio may be allocated from bio cache of the submission task, and
> freed to cache of the poll task?

Yes that is possible, and yes that would not benefit from this cache
at all. The previous version would work just fine with that, as the
cache is just under the ring lock and hence you can share it between
tasks.

I wonder if the niftier solution here is to retain the cache in the
ring still, yet have the pointer be per-task. So basically the setup
that this version does, except we store the cache itself in the ring.
I'll give that a whirl, should be a minor change, and it'll work per
ring instead then like before.

-- 
Jens Axboe