Messages' levels and console log level are inspected when the actual
printing occurs, which may provoke console_unlock() and
console_cont_flush() to waste CPU cycles on every message that has
loglevel above the current console_loglevel.

Schematically, console_unlock() does the following:

console_unlock()
{
        ...
        for (;;) {
                ...
                raw_spin_lock_irqsave(&logbuf_lock, flags);
skip:
                msg = log_from_idx(console_idx);

                if (msg->flags & LOG_NOCONS) {
                        ...
                        goto skip;
                }

                level = msg->level;
                len += msg_print_text();                        >> sprintfs
                                                                   memcpy,
                                                                   etc.

                if (nr_ext_console_drivers) {
                        ext_len = msg_print_ext_header();       >> scnprintf
                        ext_len += msg_print_ext_body();        >> scnprintfs
                                                                   etc.
                }
                ...
                raw_spin_unlock(&logbuf_lock);

                call_console_drivers(level, ext_text, ext_len, text, len)
                {
                        if (level >= console_loglevel &&        >> drop the message
                                        !ignore_loglevel)
                                return;

                        console->write(...);
                }

                local_irq_restore(flags);
        }
        ...
}

The thing here is this deferred `level >= console_loglevel' check.  We
are wasting CPU cycles on sprintfs/memcpy/etc.  preparing the messages
that we will eventually drop.

This can be huge when we register a new CON_PRINTBUFFER console, for
instance.  For every such a console register_console() resets the

        console_seq, console_idx, console_prev

and sets a `exclusive console' pointer to replay the log buffer to that
just-registered console.  And there can be a lot of messages to replay,
in the worst case most of which can be dropped after console_loglevel
test.

We know messages' levels long before we call msg_print_text() and
friends, so we can just move console_loglevel check out of
call_console_drivers() and format a new message only if we are sure that
it won't be dropped.

The patch factors out loglevel check into suppress_message_printing()
function and tests message->level and console_loglevel before formatting
functions in console_unlock() and console_cont_flush() are getting
executed.  This improves things not only for exclusive CON_PRINTBUFFER
consoles, but for every console_unlock() that attempts to print a
message of level above the console_loglevel.

Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20160627135012.8229-1-sergey.senozhatsky@gmail.com


Signed-off-by: Sergey Senozhatsky <sergey.senozhatsky@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Cc: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
Cc: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Cc: Calvin Owens <calvinowens@fb.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>