Commit-ID: 3e777f9909483b603946685d88acfae89f31b07b Gitweb: http://git.kernel.org/tip/3e777f9909483b603946685d88acfae89f31b07b Author: Steven Rostedt (VMware) <rost...@goodmis.org> AuthorDate: Tue, 28 Feb 2017 15:50:30 -0500 Committer: Ingo Molnar <mi...@kernel.org> CommitDate: Thu, 16 Mar 2017 09:41:35 +0100
sched/rt: Add comments describing the RT IPI pull method While looking into optimizations for the RT scheduler IPI logic, I realized that the comments are lacking to describe it efficiently. It deserves a lengthy description describing its design. Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt (VMware) <rost...@goodmis.org> Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <pet...@infradead.org> Cc: Andrew Morton <a...@linux-foundation.org> Cc: Clark Williams <willi...@redhat.com> Cc: Daniel Bristot de Oliveira <bris...@redhat.com> Cc: Linus Torvalds <torva...@linux-foundation.org> Cc: Mike Galbraith <efa...@gmx.de> Cc: Peter Zijlstra <pet...@infradead.org> Cc: Thomas Gleixner <t...@linutronix.de> Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20170228155030.30c69...@gandalf.local.home [ Small typographical edits. ] Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mi...@kernel.org> --- kernel/sched/rt.c | 81 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 81 insertions(+) diff --git a/kernel/sched/rt.c b/kernel/sched/rt.c index 9f3e402..979b734 100644 --- a/kernel/sched/rt.c +++ b/kernel/sched/rt.c @@ -1927,6 +1927,87 @@ static int find_next_push_cpu(struct rq *rq) #define RT_PUSH_IPI_EXECUTING 1 #define RT_PUSH_IPI_RESTART 2 +/* + * When a high priority task schedules out from a CPU and a lower priority + * task is scheduled in, a check is made to see if there's any RT tasks + * on other CPUs that are waiting to run because a higher priority RT task + * is currently running on its CPU. In this case, the CPU with multiple RT + * tasks queued on it (overloaded) needs to be notified that a CPU has opened + * up that may be able to run one of its non-running queued RT tasks. + * + * On large CPU boxes, there's the case that several CPUs could schedule + * a lower priority task at the same time, in which case it will look for + * any overloaded CPUs that it could pull a task from. To do this, the runqueue + * lock must be taken from that overloaded CPU. Having 10s of CPUs all fighting + * for a single overloaded CPU's runqueue lock can produce a large latency. + * (This has actually been observed on large boxes running cyclictest). + * Instead of taking the runqueue lock of the overloaded CPU, each of the + * CPUs that scheduled a lower priority task simply sends an IPI to the + * overloaded CPU. An IPI is much cheaper than taking an runqueue lock with + * lots of contention. The overloaded CPU will look to push its non-running + * RT task off, and if it does, it can then ignore the other IPIs coming + * in, and just pass those IPIs off to any other overloaded CPU. + * + * When a CPU schedules a lower priority task, it only sends an IPI to + * the "next" CPU that has overloaded RT tasks. This prevents IPI storms, + * as having 10 CPUs scheduling lower priority tasks and 10 CPUs with + * RT overloaded tasks, would cause 100 IPIs to go out at once. + * + * The overloaded RT CPU, when receiving an IPI, will try to push off its + * overloaded RT tasks and then send an IPI to the next CPU that has + * overloaded RT tasks. This stops when all CPUs with overloaded RT tasks + * have completed. Just because a CPU may have pushed off its own overloaded + * RT task does not mean it should stop sending the IPI around to other + * overloaded CPUs. There may be another RT task waiting to run on one of + * those CPUs that are of higher priority than the one that was just + * pushed. + * + * An optimization that could possibly be made is to make a CPU array similar + * to the cpupri array mask of all running RT tasks, but for the overloaded + * case, then the IPI could be sent to only the CPU with the highest priority + * RT task waiting, and that CPU could send off further IPIs to the CPU with + * the next highest waiting task. Since the overloaded case is much less likely + * to happen, the complexity of this implementation may not be worth it. + * Instead, just send an IPI around to all overloaded CPUs. + * + * The rq->rt.push_flags holds the status of the IPI that is going around. + * A run queue can only send out a single IPI at a time. The possible flags + * for rq->rt.push_flags are: + * + * (None or zero): No IPI is going around for the current rq + * RT_PUSH_IPI_EXECUTING: An IPI for the rq is being passed around + * RT_PUSH_IPI_RESTART: The priority of the running task for the rq + * has changed, and the IPI should restart + * circulating the overloaded CPUs again. + * + * rq->rt.push_cpu contains the CPU that is being sent the IPI. It is updated + * before sending to the next CPU. + * + * Instead of having all CPUs that schedule a lower priority task send + * an IPI to the same "first" CPU in the RT overload mask, they send it + * to the next overloaded CPU after their own CPU. This helps distribute + * the work when there's more than one overloaded CPU and multiple CPUs + * scheduling in lower priority tasks. + * + * When a rq schedules a lower priority task than what was currently + * running, the next CPU with overloaded RT tasks is examined first. + * That is, if CPU 1 and 5 are overloaded, and CPU 3 schedules a lower + * priority task, it will send an IPI first to CPU 5, then CPU 5 will + * send to CPU 1 if it is still overloaded. CPU 1 will clear the + * rq->rt.push_flags if RT_PUSH_IPI_RESTART is not set. + * + * The first CPU to notice IPI_RESTART is set, will clear that flag and then + * send an IPI to the next overloaded CPU after the rq->cpu and not the next + * CPU after push_cpu. That is, if CPU 1, 4 and 5 are overloaded when CPU 3 + * schedules a lower priority task, and the IPI_RESTART gets set while the + * handling is being done on CPU 5, it will clear the flag and send it back to + * CPU 4 instead of CPU 1. + * + * Note, the above logic can be disabled by turning off the sched_feature + * RT_PUSH_IPI. Then the rq lock of the overloaded CPU will simply be + * taken by the CPU requesting a pull and the waiting RT task will be pulled + * by that CPU. This may be fine for machines with few CPUs. + */ static void tell_cpu_to_push(struct rq *rq) { int cpu;
