[PATCH v2 0/2] powerpc: introduce CONFIG_CACHE_FLUSH_WATCHDOG_THRESHOLD

Back in June, I sent a patch [1] to reduce the number of WATCHDOG_RESET calls in flush_cache() to one per 64K. Wolfgang rejected that, saying that the threshold should be configurable.
So here's a new version which introduces a config knob. When left at its default, the generated code is binary identical to what one gets before these patches.
I stumbled on the CONFIG_5xx and thought I ought to make the config knob depend on !CONFIG_5xx, but it turns out it's better to just remove that piece of legacy, hence the first janitorial patch.
[1] https://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2020-June/414852.html
Rasmus Villemoes (2): powerpc: lib: remove leftover CONFIG_5xx powerpc: introduce CONFIG_CACHE_FLUSH_WATCHDOG_THRESHOLD
arch/powerpc/Kconfig | 1 + arch/powerpc/lib/Kconfig | 9 +++++++++ arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c | 16 ++++++++++++---- 3 files changed, 22 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) create mode 100644 arch/powerpc/lib/Kconfig

CONFIG_5xx hasn't existed since commit 502589777416 (powerpc, 5xx: remove support for 5xx). Remove this last mention of it.
Signed-off-by: Rasmus Villemoes rasmus.villemoes@prevas.dk --- arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c | 2 -- 1 file changed, 2 deletions(-)
diff --git a/arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c b/arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c index 3c3c470bbb..3e487f50fe 100644 --- a/arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c +++ b/arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c @@ -11,7 +11,6 @@
void flush_cache(ulong start_addr, ulong size) { -#ifndef CONFIG_5xx ulong addr, start, end;
start = start_addr & ~(CONFIG_SYS_CACHELINE_SIZE - 1); @@ -33,5 +32,4 @@ void flush_cache(ulong start_addr, ulong size) asm volatile("sync" : : : "memory"); /* flush prefetch queue */ asm volatile("isync" : : : "memory"); -#endif }

On 13.04.21 21:38, Rasmus Villemoes wrote:
CONFIG_5xx hasn't existed since commit 502589777416 (powerpc, 5xx: remove support for 5xx). Remove this last mention of it.
Signed-off-by: Rasmus Villemoes rasmus.villemoes@prevas.dk
arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c | 2 -- 1 file changed, 2 deletions(-)
diff --git a/arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c b/arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c index 3c3c470bbb..3e487f50fe 100644 --- a/arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c +++ b/arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c @@ -11,7 +11,6 @@
void flush_cache(ulong start_addr, ulong size) { -#ifndef CONFIG_5xx ulong addr, start, end;
start = start_addr & ~(CONFIG_SYS_CACHELINE_SIZE - 1); @@ -33,5 +32,4 @@ void flush_cache(ulong start_addr, ulong size) asm volatile("sync" : : : "memory"); /* flush prefetch queue */ asm volatile("isync" : : : "memory"); -#endif }
Reviewed-by: Stefan Roese sr@denx.de
Thanks, Stefan

When flush_cache() is called during boot on our ~7M kernel image, the hundreds of thousands of WATCHDOG_RESET calls end up adding significantly to boottime. Flushing a single cache line doesn't take many microseconds, so doing these calls for every cache line is complete overkill.
The generic watchdog_reset() provided by wdt-uclass.c actually contains some rate-limiting logic that should in theory mitigate this, but alas, that rate-limiting must be disabled on powerpc because of its get_timer() implementation - get_timer() works just fine until interrupts are disabled, but it just so happens that the "big" flush_cache() call happens in the part of bootm where interrupts are indeed disabled. [1] [2] [3]
I have checked with objdump that the generated code doesn't change when this option is left at its default value of 0: gcc is smart enough to see that wd_limit is constant 0, the ">=" comparisons are tautologically true, hence all assignments to "flushed" are eliminated as dead stores.
On our board, setting the option to something like 65536 ends up reducing total boottime by about 0.8 seconds.
[1] https://patchwork.ozlabs.org/project/uboot/patch/20200605111657.28773-1-rasm... [2] https://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2021-April/446906.html [3] https://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2021-April/447280.html
Signed-off-by: Rasmus Villemoes rasmus.villemoes@prevas.dk --- arch/powerpc/Kconfig | 1 + arch/powerpc/lib/Kconfig | 9 +++++++++ arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c | 14 ++++++++++++-- 3 files changed, 22 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) create mode 100644 arch/powerpc/lib/Kconfig
diff --git a/arch/powerpc/Kconfig b/arch/powerpc/Kconfig index 6a2e88fed2..133447648c 100644 --- a/arch/powerpc/Kconfig +++ b/arch/powerpc/Kconfig @@ -49,5 +49,6 @@ source "arch/powerpc/cpu/mpc83xx/Kconfig" source "arch/powerpc/cpu/mpc85xx/Kconfig" source "arch/powerpc/cpu/mpc86xx/Kconfig" source "arch/powerpc/cpu/mpc8xx/Kconfig" +source "arch/powerpc/lib/Kconfig"
endmenu diff --git a/arch/powerpc/lib/Kconfig b/arch/powerpc/lib/Kconfig new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..b30b5edf7c --- /dev/null +++ b/arch/powerpc/lib/Kconfig @@ -0,0 +1,9 @@ +config CACHE_FLUSH_WATCHDOG_THRESHOLD + int "Bytes to flush between WATCHDOG_RESET calls" + default 0 + help + The flush_cache() function periodically, and by default for + every cache line, calls WATCHDOG_RESET(). When flushing a + large area, that may add a significant amount of + overhead. This option allows you to set a threshold for how + many bytes to flush between each WATCHDOG_RESET call. diff --git a/arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c b/arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c index 3e487f50fe..115ae8e160 100644 --- a/arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c +++ b/arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c @@ -12,6 +12,8 @@ void flush_cache(ulong start_addr, ulong size) { ulong addr, start, end; + ulong wd_limit = CONFIG_CACHE_FLUSH_WATCHDOG_THRESHOLD; + ulong flushed = 0;
start = start_addr & ~(CONFIG_SYS_CACHELINE_SIZE - 1); end = start_addr + size - 1; @@ -19,7 +21,11 @@ void flush_cache(ulong start_addr, ulong size) for (addr = start; (addr <= end) && (addr >= start); addr += CONFIG_SYS_CACHELINE_SIZE) { asm volatile("dcbst 0,%0" : : "r" (addr) : "memory"); - WATCHDOG_RESET(); + flushed += CONFIG_SYS_CACHELINE_SIZE; + if (flushed >= wd_limit) { + WATCHDOG_RESET(); + flushed = 0; + } } /* wait for all dcbst to complete on bus */ asm volatile("sync" : : : "memory"); @@ -27,7 +33,11 @@ void flush_cache(ulong start_addr, ulong size) for (addr = start; (addr <= end) && (addr >= start); addr += CONFIG_SYS_CACHELINE_SIZE) { asm volatile("icbi 0,%0" : : "r" (addr) : "memory"); - WATCHDOG_RESET(); + flushed += CONFIG_SYS_CACHELINE_SIZE; + if (flushed >= wd_limit) { + WATCHDOG_RESET(); + flushed = 0; + } } asm volatile("sync" : : : "memory"); /* flush prefetch queue */

On 13.04.21 21:38, Rasmus Villemoes wrote:
When flush_cache() is called during boot on our ~7M kernel image, the hundreds of thousands of WATCHDOG_RESET calls end up adding significantly to boottime. Flushing a single cache line doesn't take many microseconds, so doing these calls for every cache line is complete overkill.
The generic watchdog_reset() provided by wdt-uclass.c actually contains some rate-limiting logic that should in theory mitigate this, but alas, that rate-limiting must be disabled on powerpc because of its get_timer() implementation - get_timer() works just fine until interrupts are disabled, but it just so happens that the "big" flush_cache() call happens in the part of bootm where interrupts are indeed disabled. [1] [2] [3]
I have checked with objdump that the generated code doesn't change when this option is left at its default value of 0: gcc is smart enough to see that wd_limit is constant 0, the ">=" comparisons are tautologically true, hence all assignments to "flushed" are eliminated
Nitpicking: s/tautologically/autologically. BTW, I've never heard or read this word before.
as dead stores.
On our board, setting the option to something like 65536 ends up reducing total boottime by about 0.8 seconds.
[1] https://patchwork.ozlabs.org/project/uboot/patch/20200605111657.28773-1-rasm... [2] https://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2021-April/446906.html [3] https://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2021-April/447280.html
Signed-off-by: Rasmus Villemoes rasmus.villemoes@prevas.dk
arch/powerpc/Kconfig | 1 + arch/powerpc/lib/Kconfig | 9 +++++++++ arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c | 14 ++++++++++++-- 3 files changed, 22 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) create mode 100644 arch/powerpc/lib/Kconfig
diff --git a/arch/powerpc/Kconfig b/arch/powerpc/Kconfig index 6a2e88fed2..133447648c 100644 --- a/arch/powerpc/Kconfig +++ b/arch/powerpc/Kconfig @@ -49,5 +49,6 @@ source "arch/powerpc/cpu/mpc83xx/Kconfig" source "arch/powerpc/cpu/mpc85xx/Kconfig" source "arch/powerpc/cpu/mpc86xx/Kconfig" source "arch/powerpc/cpu/mpc8xx/Kconfig" +source "arch/powerpc/lib/Kconfig"
endmenu diff --git a/arch/powerpc/lib/Kconfig b/arch/powerpc/lib/Kconfig new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..b30b5edf7c --- /dev/null +++ b/arch/powerpc/lib/Kconfig @@ -0,0 +1,9 @@ +config CACHE_FLUSH_WATCHDOG_THRESHOLD
- int "Bytes to flush between WATCHDOG_RESET calls"
- default 0
- help
The flush_cache() function periodically, and by default for
every cache line, calls WATCHDOG_RESET(). When flushing a
large area, that may add a significant amount of
overhead. This option allows you to set a threshold for how
many bytes to flush between each WATCHDOG_RESET call.
diff --git a/arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c b/arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c index 3e487f50fe..115ae8e160 100644 --- a/arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c +++ b/arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c @@ -12,6 +12,8 @@ void flush_cache(ulong start_addr, ulong size) { ulong addr, start, end;
ulong wd_limit = CONFIG_CACHE_FLUSH_WATCHDOG_THRESHOLD;
ulong flushed = 0;
start = start_addr & ~(CONFIG_SYS_CACHELINE_SIZE - 1); end = start_addr + size - 1;
@@ -19,7 +21,11 @@ void flush_cache(ulong start_addr, ulong size) for (addr = start; (addr <= end) && (addr >= start); addr += CONFIG_SYS_CACHELINE_SIZE) { asm volatile("dcbst 0,%0" : : "r" (addr) : "memory");
WATCHDOG_RESET();
flushed += CONFIG_SYS_CACHELINE_SIZE;
if (flushed >= wd_limit) {
WATCHDOG_RESET();
flushed = 0;
} /* wait for all dcbst to complete on bus */ asm volatile("sync" : : : "memory");}
@@ -27,7 +33,11 @@ void flush_cache(ulong start_addr, ulong size) for (addr = start; (addr <= end) && (addr >= start); addr += CONFIG_SYS_CACHELINE_SIZE) { asm volatile("icbi 0,%0" : : "r" (addr) : "memory");
WATCHDOG_RESET();
flushed += CONFIG_SYS_CACHELINE_SIZE;
if (flushed >= wd_limit) {
WATCHDOG_RESET();
flushed = 0;
}
It might make sense to pull these 2 identical code snippets into a function to not duplicate this code.
Other than this:
Reviewed-by: Stefan Roese sr@denx.de
Thanks, Stefan

On 15/04/2021 07.34, Stefan Roese wrote:
On 13.04.21 21:38, Rasmus Villemoes wrote:
I have checked with objdump that the generated code doesn't change when this option is left at its default value of 0: gcc is smart enough to see that wd_limit is constant 0, the ">=" comparisons are tautologically true, hence all assignments to "flushed" are eliminated
Nitpicking: s/tautologically/autologically.
No.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tautological https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tautology_(logic) "In Mathematical logic, a tautology (from Greek: ταυτολογία) is a formula or assertion that is true in every possible interpretation."
It even exists in gcc docs in the form of -Wtautological-compare. [But I do admit that "tautologically true" is a pleonasm; "tautologies" or "automatically true" could have been used instead. And going full meta, now that I look up pleonasm in wikipedia to check that I'm using it right, that article has a reference to "tautology (language)" in its second sentence.]
/* wait for all dcbst to complete on bus */ asm volatile("sync" : : : "memory"); @@ -27,7 +33,11 @@ void flush_cache(ulong start_addr, ulong size) for (addr = start; (addr <= end) && (addr >= start); addr += CONFIG_SYS_CACHELINE_SIZE) { asm volatile("icbi 0,%0" : : "r" (addr) : "memory"); - WATCHDOG_RESET(); + flushed += CONFIG_SYS_CACHELINE_SIZE; + if (flushed >= wd_limit) { + WATCHDOG_RESET(); + flushed = 0; + }
It might make sense to pull these 2 identical code snippets into a function to not duplicate this code.
Something like
static ulong maybe_reset(ulong flushed) { const ulong wd_limit = ...; flushed += CONFIG_SYS_CACHELINE_SIZE; if (flushed >= wd_limit) { WATCHDOG_RESET(); flushed = 0; } return flushed; }
and "flushed = maybe_reset(flushed);"? I don't think that improves readability.
Thanks, Rasmus

On 15.04.21 08:46, Rasmus Villemoes wrote:
On 15/04/2021 07.34, Stefan Roese wrote:
On 13.04.21 21:38, Rasmus Villemoes wrote:
I have checked with objdump that the generated code doesn't change when this option is left at its default value of 0: gcc is smart enough to see that wd_limit is constant 0, the ">=" comparisons are tautologically true, hence all assignments to "flushed" are eliminated
Nitpicking: s/tautologically/autologically.
No.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tautological https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tautology_(logic) "In Mathematical logic, a tautology (from Greek: ταυτολογία) is a formula or assertion that is true in every possible interpretation."
It even exists in gcc docs in the form of -Wtautological-compare. [But I do admit that "tautologically true" is a pleonasm; "tautologies" or "automatically true" could have been used instead. And going full meta, now that I look up pleonasm in wikipedia to check that I'm using it right, that article has a reference to "tautology (language)" in its second sentence.]
Interesting. Thanks for the detailed info.
/* wait for all dcbst to complete on bus */ asm volatile("sync" : : : "memory"); @@ -27,7 +33,11 @@ void flush_cache(ulong start_addr, ulong size) for (addr = start; (addr <= end) && (addr >= start); addr += CONFIG_SYS_CACHELINE_SIZE) { asm volatile("icbi 0,%0" : : "r" (addr) : "memory"); - WATCHDOG_RESET(); + flushed += CONFIG_SYS_CACHELINE_SIZE; + if (flushed >= wd_limit) { + WATCHDOG_RESET(); + flushed = 0; + }
It might make sense to pull these 2 identical code snippets into a function to not duplicate this code.
Something like
static ulong maybe_reset(ulong flushed) { const ulong wd_limit = ...; flushed += CONFIG_SYS_CACHELINE_SIZE; if (flushed >= wd_limit) { WATCHDOG_RESET(); flushed = 0; } return flushed; }
and "flushed = maybe_reset(flushed);"? I don't think that improves readability.
Yes, something like this. I agree that it's not really beautiful but for my personal taste it's a bit better. But I don't have hard feeling here. Let's see what other comment on this.
Thanks, Stefan

v3: Introduce a little helper function as suggested by Stefan. gcc generates the same code before and after that refactoring - in particular, the code is still the same as before these patches when the config option is left at its default.
Include Stefan's Reviewed-bys.
v2 cover letter:
Back in June, I sent a patch [1] to reduce the number of WATCHDOG_RESET calls in flush_cache() to one per 64K. Wolfgang rejected that, saying that the threshold should be configurable.
So here's a new version which introduces a config knob. When left at its default, the generated code is binary identical to what one gets before these patches.
I stumbled on the CONFIG_5xx and thought I ought to make the config knob depend on !CONFIG_5xx, but it turns out it's better to just remove that piece of legacy, hence the first janitorial patch.
[1] https://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2020-June/414852.html
Rasmus Villemoes (2): powerpc: lib: remove leftover CONFIG_5xx powerpc: introduce CONFIG_CACHE_FLUSH_WATCHDOG_THRESHOLD
arch/powerpc/Kconfig | 1 + arch/powerpc/lib/Kconfig | 9 +++++++++ arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c | 17 +++++++++++++---- 3 files changed, 23 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) create mode 100644 arch/powerpc/lib/Kconfig

CONFIG_5xx hasn't existed since commit 502589777416 (powerpc, 5xx: remove support for 5xx). Remove this last mention of it.
Reviewed-by: Stefan Roese sr@denx.de Signed-off-by: Rasmus Villemoes rasmus.villemoes@prevas.dk --- arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c | 2 -- 1 file changed, 2 deletions(-)
diff --git a/arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c b/arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c index 3c3c470bbb..3e487f50fe 100644 --- a/arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c +++ b/arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c @@ -11,7 +11,6 @@
void flush_cache(ulong start_addr, ulong size) { -#ifndef CONFIG_5xx ulong addr, start, end;
start = start_addr & ~(CONFIG_SYS_CACHELINE_SIZE - 1); @@ -33,5 +32,4 @@ void flush_cache(ulong start_addr, ulong size) asm volatile("sync" : : : "memory"); /* flush prefetch queue */ asm volatile("isync" : : : "memory"); -#endif }

When flush_cache() is called during boot on our ~7M kernel image, the hundreds of thousands of WATCHDOG_RESET calls end up adding significantly to boottime. Flushing a single cache line doesn't take many microseconds, so doing these calls for every cache line is complete overkill.
The generic watchdog_reset() provided by wdt-uclass.c actually contains some rate-limiting logic that should in theory mitigate this, but alas, that rate-limiting must be disabled on powerpc because of its get_timer() implementation - get_timer() works just fine until interrupts are disabled, but it just so happens that the "big" flush_cache() call happens in the part of bootm where interrupts are indeed disabled. [1] [2] [3]
I have checked with objdump that the generated code doesn't change when this option is left at its default value of 0: gcc is smart enough to see that the ">=" comparison is tautologically true, hence all assignments to "flushed" are eliminated as dead stores.
On our board, setting the option to something like 65536 ends up reducing total boottime by about 0.8 seconds.
[1] https://patchwork.ozlabs.org/project/uboot/patch/20200605111657.28773-1-rasm... [2] https://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2021-April/446906.html [3] https://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2021-April/447280.html
Reviewed-by: Stefan Roese sr@denx.de Signed-off-by: Rasmus Villemoes rasmus.villemoes@prevas.dk --- arch/powerpc/Kconfig | 1 + arch/powerpc/lib/Kconfig | 9 +++++++++ arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c | 15 +++++++++++++-- 3 files changed, 23 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) create mode 100644 arch/powerpc/lib/Kconfig
diff --git a/arch/powerpc/Kconfig b/arch/powerpc/Kconfig index c2c577f60c..1829de9e2c 100644 --- a/arch/powerpc/Kconfig +++ b/arch/powerpc/Kconfig @@ -49,5 +49,6 @@ source "arch/powerpc/cpu/mpc83xx/Kconfig" source "arch/powerpc/cpu/mpc85xx/Kconfig" source "arch/powerpc/cpu/mpc86xx/Kconfig" source "arch/powerpc/cpu/mpc8xx/Kconfig" +source "arch/powerpc/lib/Kconfig"
endmenu diff --git a/arch/powerpc/lib/Kconfig b/arch/powerpc/lib/Kconfig new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..b30b5edf7c --- /dev/null +++ b/arch/powerpc/lib/Kconfig @@ -0,0 +1,9 @@ +config CACHE_FLUSH_WATCHDOG_THRESHOLD + int "Bytes to flush between WATCHDOG_RESET calls" + default 0 + help + The flush_cache() function periodically, and by default for + every cache line, calls WATCHDOG_RESET(). When flushing a + large area, that may add a significant amount of + overhead. This option allows you to set a threshold for how + many bytes to flush between each WATCHDOG_RESET call. diff --git a/arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c b/arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c index 3e487f50fe..19162511ce 100644 --- a/arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c +++ b/arch/powerpc/lib/cache.c @@ -9,9 +9,20 @@ #include <asm/cache.h> #include <watchdog.h>
+static ulong maybe_watchdog_reset(ulong flushed) +{ + flushed += CONFIG_SYS_CACHELINE_SIZE; + if (flushed >= CONFIG_CACHE_FLUSH_WATCHDOG_THRESHOLD) { + WATCHDOG_RESET(); + flushed = 0; + } + return flushed; +} + void flush_cache(ulong start_addr, ulong size) { ulong addr, start, end; + ulong flushed = 0;
start = start_addr & ~(CONFIG_SYS_CACHELINE_SIZE - 1); end = start_addr + size - 1; @@ -19,7 +30,7 @@ void flush_cache(ulong start_addr, ulong size) for (addr = start; (addr <= end) && (addr >= start); addr += CONFIG_SYS_CACHELINE_SIZE) { asm volatile("dcbst 0,%0" : : "r" (addr) : "memory"); - WATCHDOG_RESET(); + flushed = maybe_watchdog_reset(flushed); } /* wait for all dcbst to complete on bus */ asm volatile("sync" : : : "memory"); @@ -27,7 +38,7 @@ void flush_cache(ulong start_addr, ulong size) for (addr = start; (addr <= end) && (addr >= start); addr += CONFIG_SYS_CACHELINE_SIZE) { asm volatile("icbi 0,%0" : : "r" (addr) : "memory"); - WATCHDOG_RESET(); + flushed = maybe_watchdog_reset(flushed); } asm volatile("sync" : : : "memory"); /* flush prefetch queue */
participants (2)
-
Rasmus Villemoes
-
Stefan Roese