120 lines
7.0 KiB
Markdown
120 lines
7.0 KiB
Markdown
# smarm v0.5 — Runtime decomposition & run-path scaling
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Goal: dismantle the single `Mutex<SharedState>` along the run path so the
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runtime scales to dozens of cores, with crash isolation hardened so a torn
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write or a stray cancellation can never poison shared runtime state.
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Guiding rules established this cycle:
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- **Lock count that matters is hot-path locks.** Cold lifecycle paths
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(spawn/join/monitor/link/finalize) may keep a small per-slot lock; the run
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path (yield/park/unpark/pop/resume) targets zero locks.
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- **Lock ordering: io-before-shared, and slot locks are leaves** (never hold
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two slot locks at once). Any new lock states its position in this order.
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- **No unwind inside a runtime critical section.** The stop sentinel only
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fires at lock-free observation points.
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- **Never hold a thread-local guard across a possible switch point.** An
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actor can be preempted at any allocation and resume on a different OS
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thread; a live `RefCell` borrow (or std `MutexGuard`) then pairs its
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acquire/release across two threads' locals — count underflow / UB.
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`with_runtime`, `with_shared`, and every `RawMutex` guard disable
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preemption for exactly this reason (phase 2 found this the hard way).
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---
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## Phase 1 — State decomposition: easy peel-offs ✅ DONE
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Split independent concerns out of `SharedState` so the global lock guards less.
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- [x] `next_monitor_id` → `AtomicU64` on `RuntimeInner` (lock-free id minting).
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- [x] `timers` → own `Mutex<Timers>` (only drain-winner + blocking prims touch it).
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- [x] `io` → own `Mutex<Option<IoThread>>` (completion queue already self-locked).
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- [x] `pending_closures: Vec` → folded into `Slot::pending_closure` (per-actor data).
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- [x] Termination check split: read io liveness *before* `shared`; ordering
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argument documented in `schedule_loop`.
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- [x] **Poison fix:** gate `check_cancelled()` in `maybe_preempt` behind
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`PREEMPTION_ENABLED`, so a cancellation sentinel can never unwind while a
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`std::sync::Mutex` (shared/channel) is held. Regression test:
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`tests/poison_stop.rs`.
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`SharedState` now holds only: `slots`, `free_list`, `run_queue`, `root_pid`.
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## Phase 2 — Slot table split ✅ DONE
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Make slot lookup lock-free and per-slot state independently mutable.
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- [x] Fixed slab: `Box<[Slot]>`, slots never move → stable
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addresses, lock-free index. **Assert on exhaustion** with a panic message
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naming `Config::max_actors(n)` as the fix. Default `max_actors = 16_384`.
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(Mental note: must become unbounded or configurable-bounded later — see
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"Deferred" below. Do not let the fixed cap calcify into an assumption.)
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- [x] Generation packed INTO the state word (better than the planned separate
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`AtomicU32`): one `AtomicU64 = (gen << 32) | state`, so the gen check is
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atomic with every transition — no ABA, no spurious unparks, by CAS.
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- [x] Per-slot CAS state machine `Vacant/Queued/Running/RunningNotified/
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Parked/Done` replacing `state` + `pending_unpark`. Also fixed a latent
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lost wakeup in the Blocking-IO completion path (result set for a
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still-Running actor without a flag).
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- [x] `sp` → relaxed `AtomicUsize`; stop flag + first-resume closure as
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`AtomicPtr`s — resume path fully lock-free.
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- [x] Per-slot raw non-poisoning futex mutex (`src/raw_mutex.rs`) for the
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cold collections. Guard enters `NoPreempt`.
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- [x] Free list → `RawMutex<Vec<u32>>` (a leaf lock). Treiber/striped only if
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the phase-4 spawn-storm bench shows contention — revisit then.
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- [x] `finalize_actor` link cascade locks peers one at a time; acyclicity
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argument written at the site. `link()` registers target-first with the
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race argument at the site.
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- [x] `live_actors` atomic; termination = io_out == 0 (read pre-queue-lock)
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&& queue empty && live == 0; decrement-last ordering documented as the
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correctness crux at the site.
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## Phase 3 — Pluggable run queue + bench shootout
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- [ ] Extract `RunQueue` behind a `type RunQueue = ...` alias selected at
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compile time by mutually-exclusive features, with a `compile_error!`
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guard if zero or >1 is set. No runtime dispatch.
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- `rq-mutex` — `Mutex<VecDeque>`, the control/baseline.
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- `rq-mpmc` — single hand-rolled Vyukov bounded MPMC ring
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(per-cell seq numbers). Strict FIFO; "one hot cache line".
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- `rq-striped` — M Vyukov rings, fetch-add ticket distribution. Relaxed
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FIFO, reordering bounded by ~M. Predicted winner @20c.
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- [ ] Bounded rings are sound because the slab cap + at-most-once-enqueued
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invariant bound occupancy ≤ `max_actors`; size Σcapacity > `max_actors`
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so push is infallible (probe next stripe when full; terminates).
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- [ ] All hand-rolled, dependency-free (portability incl. possible embedded).
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## Phase 4 — Bench harness
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- [ ] Raw-structure microbench: N threads, push/pop throughput vs thread count,
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sweeping producer:consumer ratios. Isolates the data structure.
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- [ ] Runtime-level: yield-storm, ping-pong-pairs, spawn-storm, all sweeping
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scheduler count. Reuses existing `benches/` harness style.
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- [ ] Driver script rebuilding per `rq-*` feature to compare variants in one go.
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- [ ] Sandbox validates correctness via oversubscribed `Config::exact(N)` on 1
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core; real contention numbers come from the 20-core box.
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## Phase 5 — Safety hardening & model checking
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- [ ] `loom` (dev-dependency only, x86 Linux) model tests for the slot state
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machine and each ring variant.
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- [ ] `NoPreempt` / no-unwind-under-lock audit across all internal critical
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sections; assert the invariant in debug builds where feasible.
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---
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## Fast follow (post-v0.5, written down so it isn't lost)
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- **Channel mutex migration.** `channel::Inner<T>` is `Arc<Mutex<_>>` of the
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same poison class as the old shared lock; `recv_match` even runs a user
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predicate under it. The Phase-1 `check_cancelled` gating already removes the
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unwind *source* globally, so channels are poison-safe today — but phase 2
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surfaced a second, sharper reason to migrate: the std `MutexGuard` is held
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with preemption ENABLED, so a timeslice switch inside a channel critical
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section migrates the actor and unlocks the pthread mutex from a different
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OS thread — technically UB (Linux futexes happen to tolerate it). The
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`RawMutex` guard disables preemption and is cross-thread-release sound by
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construction. Migrate as the first post-v0.5 change.
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## Deferred / explicitly out of scope for v0.5
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- **Unbounded / configurable-bounded actor count.** v0.5 ships a fixed slab
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with a loud assert. Revisit with a segmented slab (array of
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`AtomicPtr<Segment>`, doubling segment sizes, append-only) once we actually
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hit the cap or a workload demands it.
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- **Idle-wakeup eventcount.** Idle scheduler threads keep the current 100µs
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poll-sleep. A futex-based eventcount is a later optimization if benches show
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idle latency matters.
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- **User-facing safe data structures** (ArcSwap-style cells, structurally-
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shared persistent maps). Context for the runtime work, not in scope here.
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- **IO fd hygiene on actor death** (pre-existing v0.2 TODO in `io.rs`).
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