[PATCH] swap: swap_lock replace list+device

The idea of a swap_device_lock per device, and a swap_list_lock over them all,
is appealing; but in practice almost every holder of swap_device_lock must
already hold swap_list_lock, which defeats the purpose of the split.

The only exceptions have been swap_duplicate, valid_swaphandles and an
untrodden path in try_to_unuse (plus a few places added in this series).
valid_swaphandles doesn't show up high in profiles, but swap_duplicate does
demand attention.  However, with the hold time in get_swap_pages so much
reduced, I've not yet found a load and set of swap device priorities to show
even swap_duplicate benefitting from the split.  Certainly the split is mere
overhead in the common case of a single swap device.

So, replace swap_list_lock and swap_device_lock by spinlock_t swap_lock
(generally we seem to prefer an _ in the name, and not hide in a macro).

If someone can show a regression in swap_duplicate, then probably we should
add a hashlock for the swap_map entries alone (shorts being anatomic), so as
to help the case of the single swap device too.

Signed-off-by: Hugh Dickins <hugh@veritas.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>

1 files changed, 7 insertions, 8 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/vm/locking b/Documentation/vm/locking
index c3ef09a..f366fa9 100644
--- a/Documentation/vm/locking
+++ b/Documentation/vm/locking
@@ -83,19 +83,18 @@ single address space optimization, so that the zap_page_range (from
 vmtruncate) does not lose sending ipi's to cloned threads that might 
 be spawned underneath it and go to user mode to drag in pte's into tlbs.
 
-swap_list_lock/swap_device_lock
--------------------------------
+swap_lock
+--------------
 The swap devices are chained in priority order from the "swap_list" header. 
 The "swap_list" is used for the round-robin swaphandle allocation strategy.
 The #free swaphandles is maintained in "nr_swap_pages". These two together
-are protected by the swap_list_lock. 
+are protected by the swap_lock.
 
-The swap_device_lock, which is per swap device, protects the reference 
-counts on the corresponding swaphandles, maintained in the "swap_map"
-array, and the "highest_bit" and "lowest_bit" fields.
+The swap_lock also protects all the device reference counts on the
+corresponding swaphandles, maintained in the "swap_map" array, and the
+"highest_bit" and "lowest_bit" fields.
 
-Both of these are spinlocks, and are never acquired from intr level. The
-locking hierarchy is swap_list_lock -> swap_device_lock.
+The swap_lock is a spinlock, and is never acquired from intr level.
 
 To prevent races between swap space deletion or async readahead swapins
 deciding whether a swap handle is being used, ie worthy of being read in