20 Mar
2019
20 Mar
'19
11:13 a.m.
While working on the talloc context patches, I was wondering if we should
spend a bit of time to further improve libosmocore and collect something
like a wishlist.
I would currently identify the following areas:
1) initialization of the various sub-systems is too complex, there are too
many functions an application has to call. I would like to move more
to a global "application initialization", where an application registers
some large struct [of structs, ...] at start-up and tells the library
the log configuration, the copyright statement, the VTY IP/port, the config
file name, ... (some of those can of course be NULL and hence not used)
2) have some kind of extensible command line options/arguments parser
It would be useful to have common/library parts register some common
command line arguments (like config file, logging, daemonization, ..)
while the actual appliacation extending that with only its application-specific
options. I don't think this is possible with how getopt() works, so
it would require some new/different infrastructure how applications would
register their arguments
3) move global select() state into some kind of structure. This would mean
that there could be multiple lists of file descriptors rather than the
one implicit global one. Alternatively, turn the state into thread-local
storage, so each thread would have its own set of registered file descriptors,
which probably makes most sense. Not sure if one would have diffeent 'sets'
of registered file descriptors in a single thread. The same would apply
for timers: Have a list of timers for each thread; timeouts would then
also always execute on the same thread. This would put talloc context, select
and timers all in the same concept: Have one set of each on each thread,
used automatically.
Any other wishlist items?
--
- Harald Welte <laforge(a)gnumonks.org> http://laforge.gnumonks.org/
============================================================================
"Privacy in residential applications is a desirable marketing option."
(ETSI EN 300 175-7 Ch. A6)
20 Mar
20 Mar
12:28 p.m.
Is this for big refactoring wishes only?
If not, I would like to have ^L working in telnet VTY connections like
in a typical terminal: make it clear the buffer.
On 3/20/19 11:13 AM, Harald Welte wrote:
While working on the talloc context patches, I was
wondering if we should
spend a bit of time to further improve libosmocore and collect something
like a wishlist.
I would currently identify the following areas:
1) initialization of the various sub-systems is too complex, there are too
many functions an application has to call. I would like to move more
to a global "application initialization", where an application registers
some large struct [of structs, ...] at start-up and tells the library
the log configuration, the copyright statement, the VTY IP/port, the config
file name, ... (some of those can of course be NULL and hence not used)
2) have some kind of extensible command line options/arguments parser
It would be useful to have common/library parts register some common
command line arguments (like config file, logging, daemonization, ..)
while the actual appliacation extending that with only its application-specific
options. I don't think this is possible with how getopt() works, so
it would require some new/different infrastructure how applications would
register their arguments
3) move global select() state into some kind of structure. This would mean
that there could be multiple lists of file descriptors rather than the
one implicit global one. Alternatively, turn the state into thread-local
storage, so each thread would have its own set of registered file descriptors,
which probably makes most sense. Not sure if one would have diffeent 'sets'
of registered file descriptors in a single thread. The same would apply
for timers: Have a list of timers for each thread; timeouts would then
also always execute on the same thread. This would put talloc context, select
and timers all in the same concept: Have one set of each on each thread,
used automatically.
Any other wishlist items?
--
- Oliver Smith <osmith(a)sysmocom.de> https://www.sysmocom.de/
=======================================================================
* sysmocom - systems for mobile communications GmbH
* Alt-Moabit 93
* 10559 Berlin, Germany
* Sitz / Registered office: Berlin, HRB 134158 B
* Geschaeftsfuehrer / Managing Director: Harald Welte
5:31 p.m.
On Wed, Mar 20, 2019 at 12:28:14PM +0100, Oliver Smith wrote:
If not, I would like to have ^L working in telnet VTY
connections like
in a typical terminal: make it clear the buffer.
that should be rather trivial to add, I guess. I was more thinking of
more fundamental changes :)
--
- Harald Welte <laforge(a)gnumonks.org> http://laforge.gnumonks.org/
============================================================================
"Privacy in residential applications is a desirable marketing option."
(ETSI EN 300 175-7 Ch. A6)
1:04 p.m.
Hi,
On 3/20/19 11:13 AM, Harald Welte wrote:
While working on the talloc context patches, I was
wondering if we should
spend a bit of time to further improve libosmocore and collect something
like a wishlist.
I would currently identify the following areas:
1) initialization of the various sub-systems is too complex, there are too
many functions an application has to call. I would like to move more
to a global "application initialization", where an application registers
some large struct [of structs, ...] at start-up and tells the library
the log configuration, the copyright statement, the VTY IP/port, the config
file name, ... (some of those can of course be NULL and hence not used)
2) have some kind of extensible command line options/arguments parser
It would be useful to have common/library parts register some common
command line arguments (like config file, logging, daemonization, ..)
while the actual appliacation extending that with only its application-specific
options. I don't think this is possible with how getopt() works, so
it would require some new/different infrastructure how applications would
register their arguments
1 and 2 not really worth for me. I'm not against it, but I'm happy
enough with current state.
3) move global select() state into some kind of structure. This would mean
that there could be multiple lists of file descriptors rather than the
one implicit global one. Alternatively, turn the state into thread-local
storage, so each thread would have its own set of registered file descriptors,
which probably makes most sense. Not sure if one would have diffeent 'sets'
of registered file descriptors in a single thread. The same would apply
for timers: Have a list of timers for each thread; timeouts would then
also always execute on the same thread. This would put talloc context, select
and timers all in the same concept: Have one set of each on each thread,
used automatically.
Turn sate into thread-local storage makes sense. No need for different
sets per thread imho. Loosely related: It may be good to refactor code
to allow for other polling systems (like epoll()), which may be more
efficient if we have a long set of file descriptors but only a few are
triggered every loop step.
Regarding some other thread you wrote recently, I don't see much issue
in having VTY library code not supporting multithread,since you can
always force polling it from same thread and then if your process is
multithread you take care of message passing between threads yourself in
the VTY app-specific code.
For logging code we may want to add some callback which provides the
application with some way to lock/unlock a mutex or something similar.
If cb is NULL, then there's no performance penalty during logging.
Regards,
Pau
--
- Pau Espin Pedrol <pespin(a)sysmocom.de> http://www.sysmocom.de/
=======================================================================
* sysmocom - systems for mobile communications GmbH
* Alt-Moabit 93
* 10559 Berlin, Germany
* Sitz / Registered office: Berlin, HRB 134158 B
* Geschaeftsfuehrer / Managing Director: Harald Welte
5:43 p.m.
Hi Pau,
On Wed, Mar 20, 2019 at 01:04:04PM +0100, Pau Espin Pedrol wrote:
> 1) initialization of the various sub-systems is
too complex, there are too
> many functions an application has to call. I would like to move more
> to a global "application initialization", where an application
registers
> some large struct [of structs, ...] at start-up and tells the library
> the log configuration, the copyright statement, the VTY IP/port, the config
> file name, ... (some of those can of course be NULL and hence not used)
One addition here is also vty initialization. It sucks that everyone has to manually
install the VTY commands for talloc, etc. - that should just happen automagically
in some way.
> 2) have some kind of extensible command line
options/arguments parser
> It would be useful to have common/library parts register some common
> command line arguments (like config file, logging, daemonization, ..)
> while the actual appliacation extending that with only its application-specific
> options. I don't think this is possible with how getopt() works, so
> it would require some new/different infrastructure how applications would
> register their arguments
Another topic that I forgot to list is signal handling. I would think it makes
sense to move the SIGUSR1/SIGUSR2 handling into libosmocore now, particularly
as we have the root talloc context[s] in libosmocore with my related patches.
It just sucks to have to have a SIGUSR1->talloc_dump code snippet in each and
every of our programs.
Turn state into thread-local storage makes sense. No
need for different sets
per thread imho. Loosely related: It may be good to refactor code to allow
for other polling systems (like epoll()), which may be more efficient if we
have a long set of file descriptors but only a few are triggered every loop
step.
That's a good point, indeed. It's been on the wishlist for a long time, but
nobody
appeared to have been reporting any performance issues as of yet. Ideally we
wouldn't have to change our 'struct osmo_fd' at all but simply call a
different "osmo_select_main()" function which would then call epoll instead of
select.
Regarding some other thread you wrote recently, I
don't see much issue in
having VTY library code not supporting multithread,since you can always
force polling it from same thread and then if your process is multithread
you take care of message passing between threads yourself in the VTY
app-specific code.
I agree we shouldn't tackle this problem now. However, we have many sub-systems
that e.g. add a "show ..." VTY command. That command iterates over some
dynamically
created structures, like e.g. subscriber connections. So if we were in a multi-threaded
environment where external events/messages were processed in other threads than
the main thread that runs the VTY, then we can no longer simply iterate over any
of those lists, but we'd have to have mutexes/rwlocks/RCU/... to synchronize.
That's out of scope for now, as we don't have any big plans for multi-threading
in a big way just yet. We can look at it if we ever get to that point.
For logging code we may want to add some callback
which provides the
application with some way to lock/unlock a mutex or something similar. If cb
is NULL, then there's no performance penalty during logging.
Not sure I understand you here. The problem starts if we use multiple printf()
calls to write a signle line, especially with LOGPC/DEBUGPC.
This introduces problems if multiple threads writing to the same log output
then garble / intersperse each others output at points that are not the end of
a lot line.
Especially with the new _buf() and even the _c() variants of our various stringify
functions it should be possible to convert all callers of log functions to hand
in a full line in one call and remove the LOGPC/DEBUGPC for continuation.
Once we reach that point, at least log stdout/stderr/file will be ok, as glibc
guarantees that a single write/printf is "atomic". Not sure about our VTY
log backend, though.
Regards,
Harald
--
- Harald Welte <laforge(a)gnumonks.org> http://laforge.gnumonks.org/
============================================================================
"Privacy in residential applications is a desirable marketing option."
(ETSI EN 300 175-7 Ch. A6)
6:12 p.m.
Hi,
On 3/20/19 5:43 PM, Harald Welte wrote:
Maybe is as easy as having a compile flag which builds osmo_select_main
against epoll() if existent, and use select() as fallback.
Sure, I'm not expecting multi-threaded for current apps so far (perhaps
osmo-mgw in the future?). IF we add multi-thread to those we'll need
this kind of changes. I was howerver thinking about new apps, which will
already have this kind of tools/architecture in place since time 0.
Indeed, I was thinking about LOGPC/DEBUGPC and other backends like VTY here.
Regards,
Pau
--
- Pau Espin Pedrol <pespin(a)sysmocom.de> http://www.sysmocom.de/
=======================================================================
* sysmocom - systems for mobile communications GmbH
* Alt-Moabit 93
* 10559 Berlin, Germany
* Sitz / Registered office: Berlin, HRB 134158 B
* Geschaeftsfuehrer / Managing Director: Harald Welte
Hi Pau,
On Wed, Mar 20, 2019 at 01:04:04PM +0100, Pau Espin Pedrol wrote:
Fine with that. Anyway that's done at initialization, before multiple
threads/workers are started, so no issue there with multithread.
> 1) initialization of the various sub-systems
is too complex, there are too
> many functions an application has to call. I would like to move more
> to a global "application initialization", where an application
registers
> some large struct [of structs, ...] at start-up and tells the library
> the log configuration, the copyright statement, the VTY IP/port, the config
> file name, ... (some of those can of course be NULL and hence not used)
One addition here is also vty initialization. It sucks that everyone has to manually
install the VTY commands for talloc, etc. - that should just happen automagically
in some way. Another topic that I forgot to list is signal
handling. I would think it makes
sense to move the SIGUSR1/SIGUSR2 handling into libosmocore now, particularly
as we have the root talloc context[s] in libosmocore with my related patches.
It just sucks to have to have a SIGUSR1->talloc_dump code snippet in each and
every of our programs.
Please don't. Let's allow apps decide how they handle user-defined
signals and not try doing everything in a generic library. Some app
using libosmocore may want to do something else under SIGUSR1/SIGUSR2. I
really prefer having this kind of stuff being done in the app and not in
the library. If still you want to do it, at least document clearly what
libosmocore does and how to let apps overwrite the signals (so it
becomes a "public" feature and not some hidden-implementation requirement).
Turn state into thread-local storage makes sense.
No need for different sets
per thread imho. Loosely related: It may be good to refactor code to allow
for other polling systems (like epoll()), which may be more efficient if we
have a long set of file descriptors but only a few are triggered every loop
step.
That's a good point, indeed. It's been on the wishlist for a long time, but
nobody
appeared to have been reporting any performance issues as of yet. Ideally we
wouldn't have to change our 'struct osmo_fd' at all but simply call a
different "osmo_select_main()" function which would then call epoll instead of
select. Regarding some other thread you wrote recently, I
don't see much issue in
having VTY library code not supporting multithread,since you can always
force polling it from same thread and then if your process is multithread
you take care of message passing between threads yourself in the VTY
app-specific code.
I agree we shouldn't tackle this problem now. However, we have many sub-systems
that e.g. add a "show ..." VTY command. That command iterates over some
dynamically
created structures, like e.g. subscriber connections. So if we were in a multi-threaded
environment where external events/messages were processed in other threads than
the main thread that runs the VTY, then we can no longer simply iterate over any
of those lists, but we'd have to have mutexes/rwlocks/RCU/... to synchronize.
That's out of scope for now, as we don't have any big plans for multi-threading
in a big way just yet. We can look at it if we ever get to that point. For logging
code we may want to add some callback which provides the
application with some way to lock/unlock a mutex or something similar. If cb
is NULL, then there's no performance penalty during logging.
Not sure I understand you here. The problem starts if we use multiple printf()
calls to write a signle line, especially with LOGPC/DEBUGPC
This introduces problems if multiple threads writing to the same log output
then garble / intersperse each others output at points that are not the end of
a lot line.
Especially with the new _buf() and even the _c() variants of our various stringify
functions it should be possible to convert all callers of log functions to hand
in a full line in one call and remove the LOGPC/DEBUGPC for continuation.
Once we reach that point, at least log stdout/stderr/file will be ok, as glibc
guarantees that a single write/printf is "atomic". Not sure about our VTY
log backend, though.
21 Mar
21 Mar
2:51 a.m.
On Wed, Mar 20, 2019 at 06:12:30PM +0100, Pau Espin Pedrol wrote:
I think it's better to avoid the code dup in each application, have
well-defined standard handlers once.
Thinking in terms of one global libosmocore subsystem config struct, this could
be switch-off-able.
If it were implicit any application can easily put other signal handlers in
place after the fact.
~N
Another topic
that I forgot to list is signal handling. I would think it makes
sense to move the SIGUSR1/SIGUSR2 handling into libosmocore now, particularly
as we have the root talloc context[s] in libosmocore with my related patches.
It just sucks to have to have a SIGUSR1->talloc_dump code snippet in each and
every of our programs.
Please don't. Let's allow apps decide how they handle user-defined signals
and not try doing everything in a generic library. 
1:45 p.m.
Hi all,
Thinking in terms of one global libosmocore subsystem
config struct,
this could be switch-off-able.
FYI, we already have something similar in layer23 applications of OsmocomBB:
https://git.osmocom.org/osmocom-bb/tree/src/host/layer23/src/misc/app_cell_…
https://git.osmocom.org/osmocom-bb/tree/src/host/layer23/src/misc/app_cell_…
With best regards,
Vadim Yanitskiy.
2:46 a.m.
On Wed, Mar 20, 2019 at 05:43:51PM +0100, Harald Welte wrote:
it should be possible to convert all callers of log
functions to hand
in a full line in one call and remove the LOGPC/DEBUGPC for continuation.
+1 for removing LOGPC.
I already avoid using them, and write patches to remove them, because
1) they end up in messy multiple GSMTAP-log packets,
2) they check each time over whether a log category is enabled and invoke the
log system N times for the same line,
3) often cause with buggy logging, forgetting an \n or with intermediate other
logging happening in some cases.
~N
26 Mar
26 Mar
6:23 a.m.
On 20. Mar 2019, at 10:13, Harald Welte
<laforge(a)gnumonks.org> wrote:
While working on the talloc context patches, I was wondering if we should
spend a bit of time to further improve libosmocore and collect something
like a wishlist.
I would currently identify the following areas:
1) initialization of the various sub-systems is too complex, there are too
many functions an application has to call. I would like to move more
to a global "application initialization", where an application registers
some large struct [of structs, ...] at start-up and tells the library
the log configuration, the copyright statement, the VTY IP/port, the config
file name, ... (some of those can of course be NULL and hence not used)
ack. One big struct for options? But how would this work across libosmocore
and libosmonetif/libosmo-abis?
In Go there is a "pattern" to pass an options struct into the method.
2) have some kind of extensible command line
options/arguments parser
It would be useful to have common/library parts register some common
command line arguments (like config file, logging, daemonization, ..)
while the actual appliacation extending that with only its application-specific
options. I don't think this is possible with how getopt() works, so
it would require some new/different infrastructure how applications would
register their arguments
I started to like the absl flags infrastructure (but we need to make sure
to not have an excessive amount of them):
https://abseil.io/docs/python/guides/flags
flags.DEFINE_integer('age', None, 'Your age in years.', lower_bound=0)
The same concept exsists for C++, Java, Go, Python and Bash.
3) move global select() state into some kind of
structure. This would mean
that there could be multiple lists of file descriptors rather than the
one implicit global one. Alternatively, turn the state into thread-local
storage, so each thread would have its own set of registered file descriptors,
which probably makes most sense. Not sure if one would have diffeent 'sets'
of registered file descriptors in a single thread. The same would apply
for timers: Have a list of timers for each thread; timeouts would then
also always execute on the same thread. This would put talloc context, select
and timers all in the same concept: Have one set of each on each thread,
used automatically.
Do we plan to have threads? On the low-end we could have an EventServer that runs
one epoll_wait per thread. But then we are in the game of scheduling across the
threads, work stealing, etc. Maybe something already exists we can use?
On the high-end I wondered if we could have something like "fibers" and FSMs
and
CSP as first class citizens?
* When creating a new fsm it gets scheduled on the least busy worker thread
* When creating a child it stays on the same thread.
* Components communicate strictly using a CSP like primitive.
* We can scale up/scale down worker threads based on load.
4) Adopt/build an RPC mechanism (maybe evolve GSUP to it). I underestimated the
"network" effect of every binary offering the same RPC interface. Suddenly
sending a
SMS, placing a call.. becomes..
the_rpc_cli endpoint service.method < arguments
And to inspect a service
the_rpc_cli endpoint ls [service.method]
5) Plan for seamless/cooperative upgrades. E.g. by passing fds somewhere else. E.g.
leave existing TCP connections in the old process and accept new ones in the new
version. The difficulty is how to deal with the VTY and other services. We probably
need a meta server.. and meta server upgrades.
Or this might be the time to break from VTY. Give up on runtime reconfiguration (we
never had a solid model for it) and see how plain rpc can save our day?
1868
days inactive
1874
days old
9 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
-
Harald Welte -
Holger Freyther -
Neels Hofmeyr -
Oliver Smith -
Pau Espin Pedrol -
Vadim Yanitskiy