26/10/2023 17:54, Bruce Richardson:
> On Thu, Oct 26, 2023 at 04:59:51PM +0200, Morten Brørup wrote:
> > > From: Morten Brørup [mailto:m...@smartsharesystems.com]
> > > Sent: Thursday, 26 October 2023 16.50
> > > 
> > > > From: Thomas Monjalon [mailto:tho...@monjalon.net]
> > > > Sent: Thursday, 26 October 2023 16.31
> > > >
> > > > 26/10/2023 16:08, Morten Brørup:
> > > > > > From: Thomas Monjalon [mailto:tho...@monjalon.net]
> > > > > > Sent: Thursday, 26 October 2023 16.05
> > > > > >
> > > > > > 26/10/2023 15:57, Morten Brørup:
> > > > > > > > From: Morten Brørup [mailto:m...@smartsharesystems.com]
> > > > > > > > Sent: Thursday, 26 October 2023 15.45
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > From: Thomas Monjalon [mailto:tho...@monjalon.net]
> > > > > > > > > Sent: Thursday, 26 October 2023 15.37
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > 25/10/2023 18:31, Thomas Monjalon:
> > > > > > > > > > Real-time thread priority was been forbidden on Unix
> > > > > > > > > > because of problems they can cause.
> > > > > > > > > > Warnings and helpers are added to avoid deadlocks,
> > > > > > > > > > so real-time can be allowed on all systems.
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > Unit test is failing:
> > > > > > > > > DPDK:fast-tests / threads_autotest      TIMEOUT 600.01 s
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > It is seen in only 1 target (maybe the failure occurence is
> > > random):
> > > > > > > > >   Debian 11 (Buster) (ARM) | PASS
> > > > > > > > >   Fedora 37 (ARM)          | PASS
> > > > > > > > >   CentOS Stream 9 (ARM)    | FAIL
> > > > > > > > >   Fedora 38 (ARM)          | PASS
> > > > > > > > >   Fedora 38 (ARM Clang)    | PASS
> > > > > > > > >   Ubuntu 20.04 (ARM)       | PASS
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > I need to send a v4 with new implementation and better 
> > > > > > > > > comments.
> > > > > > > > > The Unix sleep will be upgraded from 1 ns to 1 us in case it 
> > > > > > > > > makes
> > > a
> > > > > > > > > difference.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > It will not make a difference. The kernel will go through the
> > > sleeping
> > > > > > steps,
> > > > > > > > then wake up again and see the real-time thread is ready to 
> > > > > > > > run, and
> > > > then
> > > > > > > > immediately schedule it.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > For testing purposes, consider sleeping 10 milliseconds or 
> > > > > > > > something
> > > > > > > > significant like that.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > A bit more details...
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > In our recent tests, nanosleep() itself took around 50 us. So you 
> > > > > > > need
> > > > to
> > > > > > sleep longer than that for your thread not to be runnable when the
> > > > nanosleep()
> > > > > > wakes up again, because 50 us has already passed in "nanosleep
> > > overhead".
> > > > > > > 10 milliseconds provides plenty of margin, and corresponds to 10
> > > jiffies
> > > > on
> > > > > > a 1000 Hz kernel. (I don't know if it makes any difference for the
> > > kernel
> > > > > > scheduler if the timer crosses a jiffy border or not.)
> > > > > >
> > > > > > 10 ms looks like an eternity.
> > > > >
> > > > > Agree. It is only for functional testing, not for production!
> > > >
> > > > Realtime thread won't make any sense if we have to insert a long sleep.
> > > 
> > > It seems David came to our rescue here!
> > > 
> > > I have just tried running our test again with prctl(PR_SET_TIMERSLACK) of 
> > > 1
> > > ns, and the nanosleep(1 ns) delay dropped from ca. 50 us to ca. 2.5 us.
> > > 
> > > The timeout parameter to epoll_wait() is in milliseconds, which is 
> > > useless for
> > > low-latency.
> > > Perhaps real-time threads can be used with epoll() combined with timerfd 
> > > for
> > > nanosecond resolution timeout.
> > 
> > Or epoll_pwait2(), which has nanosecond resolution timeout.
> > 
> > Unfortunately, rte_epoll_wait() is not an experimental API anymore, so we 
> > cannot change its timeout parameter from milliseconds to micro- or 
> > nanoseconds. We would have to introduce a new API for this.
> > 
> 
> Just an idea - can we change the timeout parameter to float rather than int,
> and then use function versioning for backward compatibility for any
> binaries passing int?
> That way the actual meaning of the parameter doesn't change, but it still
> allows sub-millisecond values (all-be-it with some loss of accuracy due to
> float).

Sorry I'm not following why you want to use rte_epoll_wait()?

If the realtime thread has some blocking system calls,
no sleep is needed I think.
For average realtime thread, I suggest the API rte_thread_yield_realtime()
which could wait for 1 ms or less by default.
For smaller sleep, we can use PR_SET_TIMERSLACK and rte_delay_us_sleep().
If we provide an API for PR_SET_TIMERSLACK, we could adapt the duration
of rte_thread_yield_realtime() dynamically after calling prctl().


Reply via email to