Linux Kernel spinlock Benchmark

Benchmark for testing Linux kernel spin locks performance with different threads and critical sections. The test scenario is similar to glibc bench-pthread-lock.

The bench configuration consists of 3 parts:

1. thread number
2. critical-section length
3. non-critical-section length

The length is the number of unit work, each unit work will roughly take 15 cycles in Icelake.

Usage

Compile and install the kernel module:

make
sudo make install

Run the test

echo "[nthreads] [crit_len] [non_crit_len] > /proc/spinlock_bench

# nthreads should <= num_online_cpus()
# example: echo "16 2 8" > /proc/spinlock_bench

Check the results

cat /proc/spinlock_bench

The benchmark will run several rounds and show result in throughputs. The highest and lowest number are discarded as outliers.