MIT 6.824 · Lecture 2: RPC and Threads #

Lecture Notes: https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.824/notes/l-rpc.txt

Why go in 6.824? #

good support for threads / RPC
Garbage collector: convenient
Types safe
Simple to learn
Compiled
The teacher (Frans Kaashoek) enjoys writing go programs :)

Thread of execution #

A thread contains PC(program counter), stack, registers etc.
threads can share memory
runtime can do the operations to thread, like start/go, exit, stop, resume

Why threads? #

express concurrency:

I/O concurrency
multi-core parallelism
convenience

In go, the threads(goroutine) are very lightweight, you are encouraged to create thread as you go.

Thread challenges #

Race conditions
- two ways to address races:
  1. avoid sharing
  2. use locks
Coordination: channels or condiiton variables
Deadlock

Go: and challenges #

Two plans to handles these concurrency challenges:

Channels (no-sharing)
Locks + condition variables (shared memeory)

Crawler #

Goals:

I/O concurrenty
Fetch a URL once
Exploit parallelism

Three examples: sequential, mutex, channel.

crawler.go

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"sync"
)

//
// Several solutions to the crawler exercise from the Go tutorial
// https://tour.golang.org/concurrency/10
//

//
// Serial crawler
//

func Serial(url string, fetcher Fetcher, fetched map[string]bool) {
	if fetched[url] {
		return
	}
	fetched[url] = true
	urls, err := fetcher.Fetch(url)
	if err != nil {
		return
	}
	for _, u := range urls {
		Serial(u, fetcher, fetched)
	}
	return
}

//
// Concurrent crawler with shared state and Mutex
//

type fetchState struct {
	mu      sync.Mutex
	fetched map[string]bool
}

func ConcurrentMutex(url string, fetcher Fetcher, f *fetchState) {
	f.mu.Lock()
	already := f.fetched[url]
	f.fetched[url] = true
	f.mu.Unlock()

	if already {
		return
	}

	urls, err := fetcher.Fetch(url)
	if err != nil {
		return
	}
	var done sync.WaitGroup
	for _, u := range urls {
		done.Add(1)
		//u2 := u
		//go func() {
		// defer done.Done()
		// ConcurrentMutex(u2, fetcher, f)
		//}()
		go func(u string) {
			defer done.Done()
			ConcurrentMutex(u, fetcher, f)
		}(u)
	}
	done.Wait()
	return
}

func makeState() *fetchState {
	f := &fetchState{}
	f.fetched = make(map[string]bool)
	return f
}

//
// Concurrent crawler with channels
//

func worker(url string, ch chan []string, fetcher Fetcher) {
	urls, err := fetcher.Fetch(url)
	if err != nil {
		ch <- []string{}
	} else {
		ch <- urls
	}
}

func coordinator(ch chan []string, fetcher Fetcher) {
	n := 1
	fetched := make(map[string]bool)
	for urls := range ch {
		for _, u := range urls {
			if fetched[u] == false {
				fetched[u] = true
				n += 1
				go worker(u, ch, fetcher)
			}
		}
		n -= 1
		if n == 0 {
			break
		}
	}
}

func ConcurrentChannel(url string, fetcher Fetcher) {
	ch := make(chan []string)
	go func() {
		ch <- []string{url}
	}()
	coordinator(ch, fetcher)
}

//
// main
//

func main() {
	fmt.Printf("=== Serial===\n")
	Serial("http://golang.org/", fetcher, make(map[string]bool))

	fmt.Printf("=== ConcurrentMutex ===\n")
	ConcurrentMutex("http://golang.org/", fetcher, makeState())

	fmt.Printf("=== ConcurrentChannel ===\n")
	ConcurrentChannel("http://golang.org/", fetcher)
}

//
// Fetcher
//

type Fetcher interface {
	// Fetch returns a slice of URLs found on the page.
	Fetch(url string) (urls []string, err error)
}

// fakeFetcher is Fetcher that returns canned results.
type fakeFetcher map[string]*fakeResult

type fakeResult struct {
	body string
	urls []string
}

func (f fakeFetcher) Fetch(url string) ([]string, error) {
	if res, ok := f[url]; ok {
		fmt.Printf("found:   %s\n", url)
		return res.urls, nil
	}
	fmt.Printf("missing: %s\n", url)
	return nil, fmt.Errorf("not found: %s", url)
}

// fetcher is a populated fakeFetcher.
var fetcher = fakeFetcher{
	"http://golang.org/": &fakeResult{
		"The Go Programming Language",
		[]string{
			"http://golang.org/pkg/",
			"http://golang.org/cmd/",
		},
	},
	"http://golang.org/pkg/": &fakeResult{
		"Packages",
		[]string{
			"http://golang.org/",
			"http://golang.org/cmd/",
			"http://golang.org/pkg/fmt/",
			"http://golang.org/pkg/os/",
		},
	},
	"http://golang.org/pkg/fmt/": &fakeResult{
		"Package fmt",
		[]string{
			"http://golang.org/",
			"http://golang.org/pkg/",
		},
	},
	"http://golang.org/pkg/os/": &fakeResult{
		"Package os",
		[]string{
			"http://golang.org/",
			"http://golang.org/pkg/",
		},
	},
}

RPC: remote procedure call #

Goal: RPCs behave roughly similar to procedure calls.

   Client                 Server
-----------     |    -----------------
z := fn(x, y)  --->   fn(x, y int) {
                |         return x + y
                |     }

Example: simple key-value server

kv.go

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"log"
	"net"
	"net/rpc"
	"sync"
)

//
// Common RPC request/reply definitions
//

const (
	OK       = "OK"
	ErrNoKey = "ErrNoKey"
)

type Err string

type PutArgs struct {
	Key   string
	Value string
}

type PutReply struct {
	Err Err
}

type GetArgs struct {
	Key string
}

type GetReply struct {
	Err   Err
	Value string
}

//
// Client
//

func connect() *rpc.Client {
	client, err := rpc.Dial("tcp", ":1234")
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal("dialing:", err)
	}
	return client
}

func get(key string) string {
	client := connect()
	args := GetArgs{"subject"}
	reply := GetReply{}
	err := client.Call("KV.Get", &args, &reply)
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal("error:", err)
	}
	client.Close()
	return reply.Value
}

func put(key string, val string) {
	client := connect()
	args := PutArgs{"subject", "6.824"}
	reply := PutReply{}
	err := client.Call("KV.Put", &args, &reply)
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal("error:", err)
	}
	client.Close()
}

//
// Server
//

type KV struct {
	mu   sync.Mutex
	data map[string]string
}

func server() {
	kv := new(KV)
	kv.data = map[string]string{}
	rpcs := rpc.NewServer()
	rpcs.Register(kv)
	l, e := net.Listen("tcp", ":1234")
	if e != nil {
		log.Fatal("listen error:", e)
	}
	go func() {
		for {
			conn, err := l.Accept()
			if err == nil {
				go rpcs.ServeConn(conn)
			} else {
				break
			}
		}
		l.Close()
	}()
}

func (kv *KV) Get(args *GetArgs, reply *GetReply) error {
	kv.mu.Lock()
	defer kv.mu.Unlock()

	val, ok := kv.data[args.Key]
	if ok {
		reply.Err = OK
		reply.Value = val
	} else {
		reply.Err = ErrNoKey
		reply.Value = ""
	}
	return nil
}

func (kv *KV) Put(args *PutArgs, reply *PutReply) error {
	kv.mu.Lock()
	defer kv.mu.Unlock()

	kv.data[args.Key] = args.Value
	reply.Err = OK
	return nil
}

//
// main
//

func main() {
	server()

	put("subject", "6.824")
	fmt.Printf("Put(subject, 6.824) done\n")
	fmt.Printf("get(subject) -> %s\n", get("subject"))
}

RPC semantics under failures #

at-least-once
at-most-once
Exactly-once: hard to arrange (lab 3)

RPC \(\neq\) PR(procedure call).