Re: cygrunsrv + sshd + rsync = 20 times too slow -- throttled?

[Ken Brown <kbrown@cornell.edu>]

On 8/29/2021 4:41 AM, Takashi Yano wrote:
> Hi Ken,
> 
> On Sat, 28 Aug 2021 16:55:52 -0400
> Ken Brown wrote:
>> On 8/28/2021 11:43 AM, Takashi Yano via Cygwin wrote:
>>> On Sat, 28 Aug 2021 13:58:08 +0200
>>> Corinna Vinschen wrote:
>>>> On Aug 28 18:41, Takashi Yano via Cygwin wrote:
>>>>> On Sat, 28 Aug 2021 10:43:27 +0200
>>>>> Corinna Vinschen wrote:
>>>>>> On Aug 28 02:21, Takashi Yano via Cygwin wrote:
>>>>>>> On Fri, 27 Aug 2021 12:00:50 -0400
>>>>>>> Ken Brown wrote:
>>>>>>>> Two years ago I thought I needed nt_create to avoid problems when calling
>>>>>>>> set_pipe_non_blocking.  Are you saying that's not an issue?  Is
>>>>>>>> set_pipe_non_blocking unnecessary?  Is that the point of your modification to
>>>>>>>> raw_read?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Yes. Instead of making windows read function itself non-blocking,
>>>>>>> it is possible to check if the pipe can be read before read using
>>>>>>> PeekNamedPipe(). If the pipe cannot be read right now, EAGAIN is
>>>>>>> returned.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The problem is this:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>     if (PeekNamedPipe())
>>>>>>       ReadFile(blocking);
>>>>>>
>>>>>> is not atomic.  I. e., if PeekNamedPipe succeeds, nothing keeps another
>>>>>> thread from draining the pipe between the PeekNamedPipe and the ReadFile
>>>>>> call.  And as soon as ReadFile runs, it hangs indefinitely and we can't
>>>>>> stop it via a signal.
>>>>>
>>>>> Hmm, you are right. Mutex guard seems to be necessary like pty code
>>>>> if we go this way.
>>>>>
>>>>>> Is a blocking ReadFile actually faster than a non-blocking read?  Or
>>>>>> does it mainly depend on BYTE vs. MESSAGE mode?
>>>>>
>>>>> Actually, I don't think so. Perhaps it is not essential problem of
>>>>> overlapped I/O but something is wrong with current pipe code.
>>>>>
>>>>>> What if the pipe is created non-blocking and stays non-blocking all the
>>>>>> time and uses BYTE mode all the time?  Just as sockets, it would always
>>>>>> only emulate blocking mode.  Wouldn't that drop code size a lot and fix
>>>>>> most problems?
>>>>>
>>>>> If 'non-blocking' means overlapped I/O, only the problem will be:
>>>>> https://cygwin.com/pipermail/cygwin/2021-March/247987.html
>>>>
>>>> Sorry if that wasn't clear, but I was not talking about overlapped I/O,
>>>> which we should get rid off, but of real non-blocking mode, which
>>>> Windows pipes are fortunately capable of.
>>>
>>> Do you mean, PIPE_NOWAIT flag? If this flags is specified in
>>> the read pipe, non-cygwin apps cannot read the pipe correctly.
>>
>> While waiting for Corinna's response to this, I have one more question.  Do you
>> understand why nt_create() failed and you had to revert to create()?  Was it an
>> access problem because nt_create requested FILE_WRITE_ATTRIBUTES?  Or did I make
>> some careless mistake in writing nt_create?
> 
> I am sorry but no. I don't understand why piping C# program via
> the pipe created by nt_create() has the issue. I tried to change
> setup parameters in nt_create(), however, I did not succeed it to
> work. I also couldn't find any mistake in nt_create() so far.
> 
> Win32 programs which use ReadFile() and WriteFile() work even
> with the pipe created by nt_create() as well as overlapped I/O.
> 
> What does C# program differ from legacy win32 program at all?

I don't know.

By the way, when I introduced nt_create(), my preference would have been to 
simply change create() to use the NT API, but I was afraid to do that because I 
didn't want to take a chance on breaking something.  That's still my preference, 
if we can find a way to work around this problem with C# programs.

Ken