technical/parallel-checkout.html

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 735 <body class="article">
 736 <div id="header">
 737 <h1>Parallel Checkout Design Notes</h1>
 738 <span id="revdate">2024-07-17</span>
 739 </div>
 740 <div id="content">
 741 <div id="preamble">
 742 <div class="sectionbody">
 743 <div class="paragraph"><p>The "Parallel Checkout" feature attempts to use multiple processes to
 744 parallelize the work of uncompressing the blobs, applying in-core
 745 filters, and writing the resulting contents to the working tree during a
 746 checkout operation. It can be used by all checkout-related commands,
 747 such as <code>clone</code>, <code>checkout</code>, <code>reset</code>, <code>sparse-checkout</code>, and others.</p></div>
 748 <div class="paragraph"><p>These commands share the following basic structure:</p></div>
 749 <div class="ulist"><ul>
 750 <li>
 751 <p>
 752 Step 1: Read the current index file into memory.
 753 </p>
 754 </li>
 755 <li>
 756 <p>
 757 Step 2: Modify the in-memory index based upon the command, and
 758   temporarily mark all cache entries that need to be updated.
 759 </p>
 760 </li>
 761 <li>
 762 <p>
 763 Step 3: Populate the working tree to match the new candidate index.
 764   This includes iterating over all of the to-be-updated cache entries
 765   and delete, create, or overwrite the associated files in the working
 766   tree.
 767 </p>
 768 </li>
 769 <li>
 770 <p>
 771 Step 4: Write the new index to disk.
 772 </p>
 773 </li>
 774 </ul></div>
 775 <div class="paragraph"><p>Step 3 is the focus of the "parallel checkout" effort described here.</p></div>
 776 </div>
 777 </div>
 778 <div class="sect1">
 779 <h2 id="_sequential_implementation">Sequential Implementation</h2>
 780 <div class="sectionbody">
 781 <div class="paragraph"><p>For the purposes of discussion here, the current sequential
 782 implementation of Step 3 is divided in 3 parts, each one implemented in
 783 its own function:</p></div>
 784 <div class="ulist"><ul>
 785 <li>
 786 <p>
 787 Step 3a: <code>unpack-trees.c:check_updates()</code> contains a series of
 788   sequential loops iterating over the <code>cache_entry</code>'s array. The main
 789   loop in this function calls the Step 3b function for each of the
 790   to-be-updated entries.
 791 </p>
 792 </li>
 793 <li>
 794 <p>
 795 Step 3b: <code>entry.c:checkout_entry()</code> examines the existing working tree
 796   for file conflicts, collisions, and unsaved changes. It removes files
 797   and creates leading directories as necessary. It calls the Step 3c
 798   function for each entry to be written.
 799 </p>
 800 </li>
 801 <li>
 802 <p>
 803 Step 3c: <code>entry.c:write_entry()</code> loads the blob into memory, smudges
 804   it if necessary, creates the file in the working tree, writes the
 805   smudged contents, calls <code>fstat()</code> or <code>lstat()</code>, and updates the
 806   associated <code>cache_entry</code> struct with the stat information gathered.
 807 </p>
 808 </li>
 809 </ul></div>
 810 <div class="paragraph"><p>It wouldn&#8217;t be safe to perform Step 3b in parallel, as there could be
 811 race conditions between file creations and removals. Instead, the
 812 parallel checkout framework lets the sequential code handle Step 3b,
 813 and uses parallel workers to replace the sequential
 814 <code>entry.c:write_entry()</code> calls from Step 3c.</p></div>
 815 </div>
 816 </div>
 817 <div class="sect1">
 818 <h2 id="_rejected_multi_threaded_solution">Rejected Multi-Threaded Solution</h2>
 819 <div class="sectionbody">
 820 <div class="paragraph"><p>The most "straightforward" implementation would be to spread the set of
 821 to-be-updated cache entries across multiple threads. But due to the
 822 thread-unsafe functions in the object database code, we would have to use locks to
 823 coordinate the parallel operation. An early prototype of this solution
 824 showed that the multi-threaded checkout would bring performance
 825 improvements over the sequential code, but there was still too much lock
 826 contention. A <code>perf</code> profiling indicated that around 20% of the runtime
 827 during a local Linux clone (on an SSD) was spent in locking functions.
 828 For this reason this approach was rejected in favor of using multiple
 829 child processes, which led to better performance.</p></div>
 830 </div>
 831 </div>
 832 <div class="sect1">
 833 <h2 id="_multi_process_solution">Multi-Process Solution</h2>
 834 <div class="sectionbody">
 835 <div class="paragraph"><p>Parallel checkout alters the aforementioned Step 3 to use multiple
 836 <code>checkout--worker</code> background processes to distribute the work. The
 837 long-running worker processes are controlled by the foreground Git
 838 command using the existing run-command API.</p></div>
 839 <div class="sect2">
 840 <h3 id="_overview">Overview</h3>
 841 <div class="paragraph"><p>Step 3b is only slightly altered; for each entry to be checked out, the
 842 main process performs the following steps:</p></div>
 843 <div class="ulist"><ul>
 844 <li>
 845 <p>
 846 M1: Check whether there is any untracked or unclean file in the
 847   working tree which would be overwritten by this entry, and decide
 848   whether to proceed (removing the file(s)) or not.
 849 </p>
 850 </li>
 851 <li>
 852 <p>
 853 M2: Create the leading directories.
 854 </p>
 855 </li>
 856 <li>
 857 <p>
 858 M3: Load the conversion attributes for the entry&#8217;s path.
 859 </p>
 860 </li>
 861 <li>
 862 <p>
 863 M4: Check, based on the entry&#8217;s type and conversion attributes,
 864   whether the entry is eligible for parallel checkout (more on this
 865   later). If it is eligible, enqueue the entry and the loaded
 866   attributes to later write the entry in parallel. If not, write the
 867   entry right away, using the default sequential code.
 868 </p>
 869 </li>
 870 </ul></div>
 871 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note: we save the conversion attributes associated with each entry
 872 because the workers don&#8217;t have access to the main process' index state,
 873 so they can&#8217;t load the attributes by themselves (and the attributes are
 874 needed to properly smudge the entry). Additionally, this has a positive
 875 impact on performance as (1) we don&#8217;t need to load the attributes twice
 876 and (2) the attributes machinery is optimized to handle paths in
 877 sequential order.</p></div>
 878 <div class="paragraph"><p>After all entries have passed through the above steps, the main process
 879 checks if the number of enqueued entries is sufficient to spread among
 880 the workers. If not, it just writes them sequentially. Otherwise, it
 881 spawns the workers and distributes the queued entries uniformly in
 882 continuous chunks. This aims to minimize the chances of two workers
 883 writing to the same directory simultaneously, which could increase lock
 884 contention in the kernel.</p></div>
 885 <div class="paragraph"><p>Then, for each assigned item, each worker:</p></div>
 886 <div class="ulist"><ul>
 887 <li>
 888 <p>
 889 W1: Checks if there is any non-directory file in the leading part of
 890   the entry&#8217;s path or if there already exists a file at the entry' path.
 891   If so, mark the entry with <code>PC_ITEM_COLLIDED</code> and skip it (more on
 892   this later).
 893 </p>
 894 </li>
 895 <li>
 896 <p>
 897 W2: Creates the file (with O_CREAT and O_EXCL).
 898 </p>
 899 </li>
 900 <li>
 901 <p>
 902 W3: Loads the blob into memory (inflating and delta reconstructing
 903   it).
 904 </p>
 905 </li>
 906 <li>
 907 <p>
 908 W4: Applies any required in-process filter, like end-of-line
 909   conversion and re-encoding.
 910 </p>
 911 </li>
 912 <li>
 913 <p>
 914 W5: Writes the result to the file descriptor opened at W2.
 915 </p>
 916 </li>
 917 <li>
 918 <p>
 919 W6: Calls <code>fstat()</code> or <code>lstat()</code> on the just-written path, and sends
 920   the result back to the main process, together with the end status of
 921   the operation and the item&#8217;s identification number.
 922 </p>
 923 </li>
 924 </ul></div>
 925 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note that, when possible, steps W3 to W5 are delegated to the streaming
 926 machinery, removing the need to keep the entire blob in memory.</p></div>
 927 <div class="paragraph"><p>If the worker fails to read the blob or to write it to the working tree,
 928 it removes the created file to avoid leaving empty files behind. This is
 929 the <strong>only</strong> time a worker is allowed to remove a file.</p></div>
 930 <div class="paragraph"><p>As mentioned earlier, it is the responsibility of the main process to
 931 remove any file that blocks the checkout operation (or abort if the
 932 removal(s) would cause data loss and the user didn&#8217;t ask to <code>--force</code>).
 933 This is crucial to avoid race conditions and also to properly detect
 934 path collisions at Step W1.</p></div>
 935 <div class="paragraph"><p>After the workers finish writing the items and sending back the required
 936 information, the main process handles the results in two steps:</p></div>
 937 <div class="ulist"><ul>
 938 <li>
 939 <p>
 940 First, it updates the in-memory index with the <code>lstat()</code> information
 941   sent by the workers. (This must be done first as this information
 942   might be required in the following step.)
 943 </p>
 944 </li>
 945 <li>
 946 <p>
 947 Then it writes the items which collided on disk (i.e. items marked
 948   with <code>PC_ITEM_COLLIDED</code>). More on this below.
 949 </p>
 950 </li>
 951 </ul></div>
 952 </div>
 953 </div>
 954 </div>
 955 <div class="sect1">
 956 <h2 id="_path_collisions">Path Collisions</h2>
 957 <div class="sectionbody">
 958 <div class="paragraph"><p>Path collisions happen when two different paths correspond to the same
 959 entry in the file system. E.g. the paths <em>a</em> and <em>A</em> would collide in a
 960 case-insensitive file system.</p></div>
 961 <div class="paragraph"><p>The sequential checkout deals with collisions in the same way that it
 962 deals with files that were already present in the working tree before
 963 checkout. Basically, it checks if the path that it wants to write
 964 already exists on disk, makes sure the existing file doesn&#8217;t have
 965 unsaved data, and then overwrites it. (To be more pedantic: it deletes
 966 the existing file and creates the new one.) So, if there are multiple
 967 colliding files to be checked out, the sequential code will write each
 968 one of them but only the last will actually survive on disk.</p></div>
 969 <div class="paragraph"><p>Parallel checkout aims to reproduce the same behavior. However, we
 970 cannot let the workers racily write to the same file on disk. Instead,
 971 the workers detect when the entry that they want to check out would
 972 collide with an existing file, and mark it with <code>PC_ITEM_COLLIDED</code>.
 973 Later, the main process can sequentially feed these entries back to
 974 <code>checkout_entry()</code> without the risk of race conditions. On clone, this
 975 also has the effect of marking the colliding entries to later emit a
 976 warning for the user, like the classic sequential checkout does.</p></div>
 977 <div class="paragraph"><p>The workers are able to detect both collisions among the entries being
 978 concurrently written and collisions between a parallel-eligible entry
 979 and an ineligible entry. The general idea for collision detection is
 980 quite straightforward: for each parallel-eligible entry, the main
 981 process must remove all files that prevent this entry from being written
 982 (before enqueueing it). This includes any non-directory file in the
 983 leading path of the entry. Later, when a worker gets assigned the entry,
 984 it looks again for the non-directory files and for an already existing
 985 file at the entry&#8217;s path. If any of these checks finds something, the
 986 worker knows that there was a path collision.</p></div>
 987 <div class="paragraph"><p>Because parallel checkout can distinguish path collisions from the case
 988 where the file was already present in the working tree before checkout,
 989 we could alternatively choose to skip the checkout of colliding entries.
 990 However, each entry that doesn&#8217;t get written would have NULL <code>lstat()</code>
 991 fields on the index. This could cause performance penalties for
 992 subsequent commands that need to refresh the index, as they would have
 993 to go to the file system to see if the entry is dirty. Thus, if we have
 994 N entries in a colliding group and we decide to write and <code>lstat()</code> only
 995 one of them, every subsequent <code>git-status</code> will have to read, convert,
 996 and hash the written file N - 1 times. By checking out all colliding
 997 entries (like the sequential code does), we only pay the overhead once,
 998 during checkout.</p></div>
 999 </div>
1000 </div>
1001 <div class="sect1">
1002 <h2 id="_eligible_entries_for_parallel_checkout">Eligible Entries for Parallel Checkout</h2>
1003 <div class="sectionbody">
1004 <div class="paragraph"><p>As previously mentioned, not all entries passed to <code>checkout_entry()</code>
1005 will be considered eligible for parallel checkout. More specifically, we
1006 exclude:</p></div>
1007 <div class="ulist"><ul>
1008 <li>
1009 <p>
1010 Symbolic links; to avoid race conditions that, in combination with
1011   path collisions, could cause workers to write files at the wrong
1012   place. For example, if we were to concurrently check out a symlink
1013   <em>a</em> &#8594; <em>b</em> and a regular file <em>A/f</em> in a case-insensitive file system,
1014   we could potentially end up writing the file <em>A/f</em> at <em>a/f</em>, due to a
1015   race condition.
1016 </p>
1017 </li>
1018 <li>
1019 <p>
1020 Regular files that require external filters (either "one shot" filters
1021   or long-running process filters). These filters are black-boxes to Git
1022   and may have their own internal locking or non-concurrent assumptions.
1023   So it might not be safe to run multiple instances in parallel.
1024 </p>
1025 <div class="paragraph"><p>Besides, long-running filters may use the delayed checkout feature to
1026 postpone the return of some filtered blobs. The delayed checkout queue
1027 and the parallel checkout queue are not compatible and should remain
1028 separate.</p></div>
1029 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note: regular files that only require internal filters, like end-of-line
1030 conversion and re-encoding, are eligible for parallel checkout.</p></div>
1031 </li>
1032 </ul></div>
1033 <div class="paragraph"><p>Ineligible entries are checked out by the classic sequential codepath
1034 <strong>before</strong> spawning workers.</p></div>
1035 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note: submodules' files are also eligible for parallel checkout (as
1036 long as they don&#8217;t fall into any of the excluding categories mentioned
1037 above). But since each submodule is checked out in its own child
1038 process, we don&#8217;t mix the superproject&#8217;s and the submodules' files in
1039 the same parallel checkout process or queue.</p></div>
1040 </div>
1041 </div>
1042 <div class="sect1">
1043 <h2 id="_the_api">The API</h2>
1044 <div class="sectionbody">
1045 <div class="paragraph"><p>The parallel checkout API was designed with the goal of minimizing
1046 changes to the current users of the checkout machinery. This means that
1047 they don&#8217;t have to call a different function for sequential or parallel
1048 checkout. As already mentioned, <code>checkout_entry()</code> will automatically
1049 insert the given entry in the parallel checkout queue when this feature
1050 is enabled and the entry is eligible; otherwise, it will just write the
1051 entry right away, using the sequential code. In general, callers of the
1052 parallel checkout API should look similar to this:</p></div>
1053 <div class="listingblock">
1054 <div class="content">
1055 <pre><code>int pc_workers, pc_threshold, err = 0;
1056 struct checkout state;
1057
1058 get_parallel_checkout_configs(&amp;pc_workers, &amp;pc_threshold);
1059
1060 /*
1061  * This check is not strictly required, but it
1062  * should save some time in sequential mode.
1063  */
1064 if (pc_workers &gt; 1)
1065         init_parallel_checkout();
1066
1067 for (each cache_entry ce to-be-updated)
1068         err |= checkout_entry(ce, &amp;state, NULL, NULL);
1069
1070 err |= run_parallel_checkout(&amp;state, pc_workers, pc_threshold, NULL, NULL);</code></pre>
1071 </div></div>
1072 </div>
1073 </div>
1074 </div>
1075 <div id="footnotes"><hr /></div>
1076 <div id="footer">
1077 <div id="footer-text">
1078 Last updated
1079  2023-10-23 14:43:46 PDT
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