cinder/doc/source/contributor/threading.rst
Jay S. Bryant 1423480fb6 Make doc/source directory compliant with design in spec
The following spec defines what each project's doc/source
directory is supposed to look like:

https://specs.openstack.org/openstack/docs-specs/specs/pike/os-manuals-migration.html

I had not yet moved existing content to follow this design.
This patch does that, moving the devref to the
'contributor' directory.  It also moves the CLI
related documentation into the 'cli' directory.  I have
updated the autodoc generation to now create the api
documentation in 'doc/source/contributor/api'.

This patch also creates a template for future documentation
contribution.  I have created all of the directories
recommended by the spec and have included documentation
as to what should go in each directory.

The index file is updated to point at the new locations for
existing content.

'doc/.gitignore' is updated so that it won't complain about the
automatically generated 'doc/contributor/api' directory.

Change-Id: I55c50fa0b7c1d06c91e40dbcfd11b1c8e8378aa6
2017-07-19 15:59:02 -05:00

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Threading model
===============
All OpenStack services use *green thread* model of threading, implemented
through using the Python `eventlet <http://eventlet.net/>`_ and
`greenlet <http://packages.python.org/greenlet/>`_ libraries.
Green threads use a cooperative model of threading: thread context
switches can only occur when specific eventlet or greenlet library calls are
made (e.g., sleep, certain I/O calls). From the operating system's point of
view, each OpenStack service runs in a single thread.
The use of green threads reduces the likelihood of race conditions, but does
not completely eliminate them. In some cases, you may need to use the
``@utils.synchronized(...)`` decorator to avoid races.
In addition, since there is only one operating system thread, a call that
blocks that main thread will block the entire process.
Yielding the thread in long-running tasks
-----------------------------------------
If a code path takes a long time to execute and does not contain any methods
that trigger an eventlet context switch, the long-running thread will block
any pending threads.
This scenario can be avoided by adding calls to the eventlet sleep method
in the long-running code path. The sleep call will trigger a context switch
if there are pending threads, and using an argument of 0 will avoid introducing
delays in the case that there is only a single green thread::
from eventlet import greenthread
...
greenthread.sleep(0)
In current code, time.sleep(0does the same thing as greenthread.sleep(0) if
time module is patched through eventlet.monkey_patch(). To be explicit, we recommend
contributors use ``greenthread.sleep()`` instead of ``time.sleep()``.
MySQL access and eventlet
-------------------------
There are some MySQL DB API drivers for oslo.db, like `PyMySQL`_, MySQL-python
etc. PyMySQL is the default MySQL DB API driver for oslo.db, and it works well with
eventlet. MySQL-python uses an external C library for accessing the MySQL database.
Since eventlet cannot use monkey-patching to intercept blocking calls in a C library,
queries to the MySQL database using libraries like MySQL-python will block the main
thread of a service.
The Diablo release contained a thread-pooling implementation that did not
block, but this implementation resulted in a `bug`_ and was removed.
See this `mailing list thread`_ for a discussion of this issue, including
a discussion of the `impact on performance`_.
.. _bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/cinder/+bug/838581
.. _mailing list thread: https://lists.launchpad.net/openstack/msg08118.html
.. _impact on performance: https://lists.launchpad.net/openstack/msg08217.html
.. _PyMySQL: https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/PyMySQL_evaluation