Greetings,
While running a ktrace enabled kernel (IKD), I noticed many useless
context switches. The problem is that we continually pester kswapd/
kflushd at times when they can't do anything other than go back to
sleep. As you'll see below, we do this quite a bit under heavy load.
Before:
user : 0:08:02.33 58.7% page in : 763148
nice : 0:00:00.00 0.0% page out: 569132
system: 0:02:39.83 19.4% swap in : 125546
idle : 0:02:59.73 21.9% swap out: 133831
uptime: 0:13:41.88 context : 685149
After:
user : 0:08:01.93 59.8% page in : 768532
nice : 0:00:00.00 0.0% page out: 578009
system: 0:02:17.27 17.0% swap in : 127100
idle : 0:03:06.34 23.1% swap out: 136101
uptime: 0:13:25.53 context : 391966
Instrumentation sample:
c0185cf0 submit_bh +<10/80> (0.34) pid(4)
c0185bb3 generic_make_request +<13/140> (0.32) pid(4)
c0184e03 blk_get_queue +<f/4c> (0.24) pid(4)
c01b2195 ide_get_queue +<d/38> (0.39) pid(4)
c0185527 __make_request +<13/68c> (0.54) pid(4)
c0186ac7 elevator_linus_merge +<13/130> (7.72) pid(4)
c0133977 __wait_on_buffer +<13/9c> (1.32) pid(4)
c01141c3 add_wait_queue +<f/38> (0.38) pid(4)
c011323b schedule +<13/398> (4.66) pid(4->6)
...
c011323b schedule +<13/398> (3.75) pid(381->4)
c01057e3 __switch_to +<13/cc> (2.66) pid(4)
c011323b schedule +<13/398> (2.49) pid(4->426)
...
c011323b schedule +<13/398> (4.97) pid(426->4)
c01057e3 __switch_to +<13/cc> (3.77) pid(4)
c011323b schedule +<13/398> (1.76) pid(4->419)
...
c011323b schedule +<13/398> (1.47) pid(400->4)
c01057e3 __switch_to +<13/cc> (0.66) pid(4)
c011323b schedule +<13/398> (0.65) pid(4->400)
...
c011323b schedule +<13/398> (1.46) pid(400->4)
c01057e3 __switch_to +<13/cc> (1.66) pid(4)
c011323b schedule +<13/398> (0.73) pid(4->400)
...zzz
--- linux-2.4.4.ikd/mm/vmscan.c.org Tue May 8 10:54:33 2001
+++ linux-2.4.4.ikd/mm/vmscan.c Tue May 8 11:16:17 2001
@@ -964,7 +964,7 @@
void wakeup_kswapd(void)
{
- if (current != kswapd_task)
+ if (waitqueue_active(&kswapd_wait))
wake_up_process(kswapd_task);
}
--- linux-2.4.4.ikd/fs/buffer.c.org Tue May 8 10:55:33 2001
+++ linux-2.4.4.ikd/fs/buffer.c Tue May 8 11:15:22 2001
@@ -2578,16 +2578,16 @@
return flushed;
}
+DECLARE_WAIT_QUEUE_HEAD(kflushd_wait);
struct task_struct *bdflush_tsk = 0;
void wakeup_bdflush(int block)
{
- if (current != bdflush_tsk) {
+ if (waitqueue_active(&kflushd_wait))
wake_up_process(bdflush_tsk);
- if (block)
- flush_dirty_buffers(0);
- }
+ if (block)
+ flush_dirty_buffers(0);
}
/*
@@ -2711,14 +2711,10 @@
* skip the sleep and flush some more. Otherwise, we
* go to sleep waiting a wakeup.
*/
- set_current_state(TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE);
if (!flushed || balance_dirty_state(NODEV) < 0) {
run_task_queue(&tq_disk);
- schedule();
+ interruptible_sleep_on(&kflushd_wait);
}
- /* Remember to mark us as running otherwise
- the next schedule will block. */
- __set_current_state(TASK_RUNNING);
}
}
-
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