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diff --git a/Documentation/kernel-per-CPU-kthreads.txt b/Documentation/kernel-per-CPU-kthreads.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000..0f00f9c16 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/kernel-per-CPU-kthreads.txt @@ -0,0 +1,356 @@ +========================================== +Reducing OS jitter due to per-cpu kthreads +========================================== + +This document lists per-CPU kthreads in the Linux kernel and presents +options to control their OS jitter. Note that non-per-CPU kthreads are +not listed here. To reduce OS jitter from non-per-CPU kthreads, bind +them to a "housekeeping" CPU dedicated to such work. + +References +========== + +- Documentation/IRQ-affinity.txt: Binding interrupts to sets of CPUs. + +- Documentation/cgroup-v1: Using cgroups to bind tasks to sets of CPUs. + +- man taskset: Using the taskset command to bind tasks to sets + of CPUs. + +- man sched_setaffinity: Using the sched_setaffinity() system + call to bind tasks to sets of CPUs. + +- /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpuN/online: Control CPU N's hotplug state, + writing "0" to offline and "1" to online. + +- In order to locate kernel-generated OS jitter on CPU N: + + cd /sys/kernel/debug/tracing + echo 1 > max_graph_depth # Increase the "1" for more detail + echo function_graph > current_tracer + # run workload + cat per_cpu/cpuN/trace + +kthreads +======== + +Name: + ehca_comp/%u + +Purpose: + Periodically process Infiniband-related work. + +To reduce its OS jitter, do any of the following: + +1. Don't use eHCA Infiniband hardware, instead choosing hardware + that does not require per-CPU kthreads. This will prevent these + kthreads from being created in the first place. (This will + work for most people, as this hardware, though important, is + relatively old and is produced in relatively low unit volumes.) +2. Do all eHCA-Infiniband-related work on other CPUs, including + interrupts. +3. Rework the eHCA driver so that its per-CPU kthreads are + provisioned only on selected CPUs. + + +Name: + irq/%d-%s + +Purpose: + Handle threaded interrupts. + +To reduce its OS jitter, do the following: + +1. Use irq affinity to force the irq threads to execute on + some other CPU. + +Name: + kcmtpd_ctr_%d + +Purpose: + Handle Bluetooth work. + +To reduce its OS jitter, do one of the following: + +1. Don't use Bluetooth, in which case these kthreads won't be + created in the first place. +2. Use irq affinity to force Bluetooth-related interrupts to + occur on some other CPU and furthermore initiate all + Bluetooth activity on some other CPU. + +Name: + ksoftirqd/%u + +Purpose: + Execute softirq handlers when threaded or when under heavy load. + +To reduce its OS jitter, each softirq vector must be handled +separately as follows: + +TIMER_SOFTIRQ +------------- + +Do all of the following: + +1. To the extent possible, keep the CPU out of the kernel when it + is non-idle, for example, by avoiding system calls and by forcing + both kernel threads and interrupts to execute elsewhere. +2. Build with CONFIG_HOTPLUG_CPU=y. After boot completes, force + the CPU offline, then bring it back online. This forces + recurring timers to migrate elsewhere. If you are concerned + with multiple CPUs, force them all offline before bringing the + first one back online. Once you have onlined the CPUs in question, + do not offline any other CPUs, because doing so could force the + timer back onto one of the CPUs in question. + +NET_TX_SOFTIRQ and NET_RX_SOFTIRQ +--------------------------------- + +Do all of the following: + +1. Force networking interrupts onto other CPUs. +2. Initiate any network I/O on other CPUs. +3. Once your application has started, prevent CPU-hotplug operations + from being initiated from tasks that might run on the CPU to + be de-jittered. (It is OK to force this CPU offline and then + bring it back online before you start your application.) + +BLOCK_SOFTIRQ +------------- + +Do all of the following: + +1. Force block-device interrupts onto some other CPU. +2. Initiate any block I/O on other CPUs. +3. Once your application has started, prevent CPU-hotplug operations + from being initiated from tasks that might run on the CPU to + be de-jittered. (It is OK to force this CPU offline and then + bring it back online before you start your application.) + +IRQ_POLL_SOFTIRQ +---------------- + +Do all of the following: + +1. Force block-device interrupts onto some other CPU. +2. Initiate any block I/O and block-I/O polling on other CPUs. +3. Once your application has started, prevent CPU-hotplug operations + from being initiated from tasks that might run on the CPU to + be de-jittered. (It is OK to force this CPU offline and then + bring it back online before you start your application.) + +TASKLET_SOFTIRQ +--------------- + +Do one or more of the following: + +1. Avoid use of drivers that use tasklets. (Such drivers will contain + calls to things like tasklet_schedule().) +2. Convert all drivers that you must use from tasklets to workqueues. +3. Force interrupts for drivers using tasklets onto other CPUs, + and also do I/O involving these drivers on other CPUs. + +SCHED_SOFTIRQ +------------- + +Do all of the following: + +1. Avoid sending scheduler IPIs to the CPU to be de-jittered, + for example, ensure that at most one runnable kthread is present + on that CPU. If a thread that expects to run on the de-jittered + CPU awakens, the scheduler will send an IPI that can result in + a subsequent SCHED_SOFTIRQ. +2. CONFIG_NO_HZ_FULL=y and ensure that the CPU to be de-jittered + is marked as an adaptive-ticks CPU using the "nohz_full=" + boot parameter. This reduces the number of scheduler-clock + interrupts that the de-jittered CPU receives, minimizing its + chances of being selected to do the load balancing work that + runs in SCHED_SOFTIRQ context. +3. To the extent possible, keep the CPU out of the kernel when it + is non-idle, for example, by avoiding system calls and by + forcing both kernel threads and interrupts to execute elsewhere. + This further reduces the number of scheduler-clock interrupts + received by the de-jittered CPU. + +HRTIMER_SOFTIRQ +--------------- + +Do all of the following: + +1. To the extent possible, keep the CPU out of the kernel when it + is non-idle. For example, avoid system calls and force both + kernel threads and interrupts to execute elsewhere. +2. Build with CONFIG_HOTPLUG_CPU=y. Once boot completes, force the + CPU offline, then bring it back online. This forces recurring + timers to migrate elsewhere. If you are concerned with multiple + CPUs, force them all offline before bringing the first one + back online. Once you have onlined the CPUs in question, do not + offline any other CPUs, because doing so could force the timer + back onto one of the CPUs in question. + +RCU_SOFTIRQ +----------- + +Do at least one of the following: + +1. Offload callbacks and keep the CPU in either dyntick-idle or + adaptive-ticks state by doing all of the following: + + a. CONFIG_NO_HZ_FULL=y and ensure that the CPU to be + de-jittered is marked as an adaptive-ticks CPU using the + "nohz_full=" boot parameter. Bind the rcuo kthreads to + housekeeping CPUs, which can tolerate OS jitter. + b. To the extent possible, keep the CPU out of the kernel + when it is non-idle, for example, by avoiding system + calls and by forcing both kernel threads and interrupts + to execute elsewhere. + +2. Enable RCU to do its processing remotely via dyntick-idle by + doing all of the following: + + a. Build with CONFIG_NO_HZ=y and CONFIG_RCU_FAST_NO_HZ=y. + b. Ensure that the CPU goes idle frequently, allowing other + CPUs to detect that it has passed through an RCU quiescent + state. If the kernel is built with CONFIG_NO_HZ_FULL=y, + userspace execution also allows other CPUs to detect that + the CPU in question has passed through a quiescent state. + c. To the extent possible, keep the CPU out of the kernel + when it is non-idle, for example, by avoiding system + calls and by forcing both kernel threads and interrupts + to execute elsewhere. + +Name: + kworker/%u:%d%s (cpu, id, priority) + +Purpose: + Execute workqueue requests + +To reduce its OS jitter, do any of the following: + +1. Run your workload at a real-time priority, which will allow + preempting the kworker daemons. +2. A given workqueue can be made visible in the sysfs filesystem + by passing the WQ_SYSFS to that workqueue's alloc_workqueue(). + Such a workqueue can be confined to a given subset of the + CPUs using the ``/sys/devices/virtual/workqueue/*/cpumask`` sysfs + files. The set of WQ_SYSFS workqueues can be displayed using + "ls sys/devices/virtual/workqueue". That said, the workqueues + maintainer would like to caution people against indiscriminately + sprinkling WQ_SYSFS across all the workqueues. The reason for + caution is that it is easy to add WQ_SYSFS, but because sysfs is + part of the formal user/kernel API, it can be nearly impossible + to remove it, even if its addition was a mistake. +3. Do any of the following needed to avoid jitter that your + application cannot tolerate: + + a. Build your kernel with CONFIG_SLUB=y rather than + CONFIG_SLAB=y, thus avoiding the slab allocator's periodic + use of each CPU's workqueues to run its cache_reap() + function. + b. Avoid using oprofile, thus avoiding OS jitter from + wq_sync_buffer(). + c. Limit your CPU frequency so that a CPU-frequency + governor is not required, possibly enlisting the aid of + special heatsinks or other cooling technologies. If done + correctly, and if you CPU architecture permits, you should + be able to build your kernel with CONFIG_CPU_FREQ=n to + avoid the CPU-frequency governor periodically running + on each CPU, including cs_dbs_timer() and od_dbs_timer(). + + WARNING: Please check your CPU specifications to + make sure that this is safe on your particular system. + d. As of v3.18, Christoph Lameter's on-demand vmstat workers + commit prevents OS jitter due to vmstat_update() on + CONFIG_SMP=y systems. Before v3.18, is not possible + to entirely get rid of the OS jitter, but you can + decrease its frequency by writing a large value to + /proc/sys/vm/stat_interval. The default value is HZ, + for an interval of one second. Of course, larger values + will make your virtual-memory statistics update more + slowly. Of course, you can also run your workload at + a real-time priority, thus preempting vmstat_update(), + but if your workload is CPU-bound, this is a bad idea. + However, there is an RFC patch from Christoph Lameter + (based on an earlier one from Gilad Ben-Yossef) that + reduces or even eliminates vmstat overhead for some + workloads at https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/9/4/379. + e. Boot with "elevator=noop" to avoid workqueue use by + the block layer. + f. If running on high-end powerpc servers, build with + CONFIG_PPC_RTAS_DAEMON=n. This prevents the RTAS + daemon from running on each CPU every second or so. + (This will require editing Kconfig files and will defeat + this platform's RAS functionality.) This avoids jitter + due to the rtas_event_scan() function. + WARNING: Please check your CPU specifications to + make sure that this is safe on your particular system. + g. If running on Cell Processor, build your kernel with + CBE_CPUFREQ_SPU_GOVERNOR=n to avoid OS jitter from + spu_gov_work(). + WARNING: Please check your CPU specifications to + make sure that this is safe on your particular system. + h. If running on PowerMAC, build your kernel with + CONFIG_PMAC_RACKMETER=n to disable the CPU-meter, + avoiding OS jitter from rackmeter_do_timer(). + +Name: + rcuc/%u + +Purpose: + Execute RCU callbacks in CONFIG_RCU_BOOST=y kernels. + +To reduce its OS jitter, do at least one of the following: + +1. Build the kernel with CONFIG_PREEMPT=n. This prevents these + kthreads from being created in the first place, and also obviates + the need for RCU priority boosting. This approach is feasible + for workloads that do not require high degrees of responsiveness. +2. Build the kernel with CONFIG_RCU_BOOST=n. This prevents these + kthreads from being created in the first place. This approach + is feasible only if your workload never requires RCU priority + boosting, for example, if you ensure frequent idle time on all + CPUs that might execute within the kernel. +3. Build with CONFIG_RCU_NOCB_CPU=y and boot with the rcu_nocbs= + boot parameter offloading RCU callbacks from all CPUs susceptible + to OS jitter. This approach prevents the rcuc/%u kthreads from + having any work to do, so that they are never awakened. +4. Ensure that the CPU never enters the kernel, and, in particular, + avoid initiating any CPU hotplug operations on this CPU. This is + another way of preventing any callbacks from being queued on the + CPU, again preventing the rcuc/%u kthreads from having any work + to do. + +Name: + rcuob/%d, rcuop/%d, and rcuos/%d + +Purpose: + Offload RCU callbacks from the corresponding CPU. + +To reduce its OS jitter, do at least one of the following: + +1. Use affinity, cgroups, or other mechanism to force these kthreads + to execute on some other CPU. +2. Build with CONFIG_RCU_NOCB_CPU=n, which will prevent these + kthreads from being created in the first place. However, please + note that this will not eliminate OS jitter, but will instead + shift it to RCU_SOFTIRQ. + +Name: + watchdog/%u + +Purpose: + Detect software lockups on each CPU. + +To reduce its OS jitter, do at least one of the following: + +1. Build with CONFIG_LOCKUP_DETECTOR=n, which will prevent these + kthreads from being created in the first place. +2. Boot with "nosoftlockup=0", which will also prevent these kthreads + from being created. Other related watchdog and softlockup boot + parameters may be found in Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.rst + and Documentation/watchdog/watchdog-parameters.txt. +3. Echo a zero to /proc/sys/kernel/watchdog to disable the + watchdog timer. +4. Echo a large number of /proc/sys/kernel/watchdog_thresh in + order to reduce the frequency of OS jitter due to the watchdog + timer down to a level that is acceptable for your workload. |