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authorDaniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>2024-04-07 18:49:45 +0000
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+=====================
+CFS Bandwidth Control
+=====================
+
+.. note::
+ This document only discusses CPU bandwidth control for SCHED_NORMAL.
+ The SCHED_RT case is covered in Documentation/scheduler/sched-rt-group.rst
+
+CFS bandwidth control is a CONFIG_FAIR_GROUP_SCHED extension which allows the
+specification of the maximum CPU bandwidth available to a group or hierarchy.
+
+The bandwidth allowed for a group is specified using a quota and period. Within
+each given "period" (microseconds), a task group is allocated up to "quota"
+microseconds of CPU time. That quota is assigned to per-cpu run queues in
+slices as threads in the cgroup become runnable. Once all quota has been
+assigned any additional requests for quota will result in those threads being
+throttled. Throttled threads will not be able to run again until the next
+period when the quota is replenished.
+
+A group's unassigned quota is globally tracked, being refreshed back to
+cfs_quota units at each period boundary. As threads consume this bandwidth it
+is transferred to cpu-local "silos" on a demand basis. The amount transferred
+within each of these updates is tunable and described as the "slice".
+
+Burst feature
+-------------
+This feature borrows time now against our future underrun, at the cost of
+increased interference against the other system users. All nicely bounded.
+
+Traditional (UP-EDF) bandwidth control is something like:
+
+ (U = \Sum u_i) <= 1
+
+This guaranteeds both that every deadline is met and that the system is
+stable. After all, if U were > 1, then for every second of walltime,
+we'd have to run more than a second of program time, and obviously miss
+our deadline, but the next deadline will be further out still, there is
+never time to catch up, unbounded fail.
+
+The burst feature observes that a workload doesn't always executes the full
+quota; this enables one to describe u_i as a statistical distribution.
+
+For example, have u_i = {x,e}_i, where x is the p(95) and x+e p(100)
+(the traditional WCET). This effectively allows u to be smaller,
+increasing the efficiency (we can pack more tasks in the system), but at
+the cost of missing deadlines when all the odds line up. However, it
+does maintain stability, since every overrun must be paired with an
+underrun as long as our x is above the average.
+
+That is, suppose we have 2 tasks, both specify a p(95) value, then we
+have a p(95)*p(95) = 90.25% chance both tasks are within their quota and
+everything is good. At the same time we have a p(5)p(5) = 0.25% chance
+both tasks will exceed their quota at the same time (guaranteed deadline
+fail). Somewhere in between there's a threshold where one exceeds and
+the other doesn't underrun enough to compensate; this depends on the
+specific CDFs.
+
+At the same time, we can say that the worst case deadline miss, will be
+\Sum e_i; that is, there is a bounded tardiness (under the assumption
+that x+e is indeed WCET).
+
+The interferenece when using burst is valued by the possibilities for
+missing the deadline and the average WCET. Test results showed that when
+there many cgroups or CPU is under utilized, the interference is
+limited. More details are shown in:
+https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/5371BD36-55AE-4F71-B9D7-B86DC32E3D2B@linux.alibaba.com/
+
+Management
+----------
+Quota, period and burst are managed within the cpu subsystem via cgroupfs.
+
+.. note::
+ The cgroupfs files described in this section are only applicable
+ to cgroup v1. For cgroup v2, see
+ :ref:`Documentation/admin-guide/cgroup-v2.rst <cgroup-v2-cpu>`.
+
+- cpu.cfs_quota_us: run-time replenished within a period (in microseconds)
+- cpu.cfs_period_us: the length of a period (in microseconds)
+- cpu.stat: exports throttling statistics [explained further below]
+- cpu.cfs_burst_us: the maximum accumulated run-time (in microseconds)
+
+The default values are::
+
+ cpu.cfs_period_us=100ms
+ cpu.cfs_quota_us=-1
+ cpu.cfs_burst_us=0
+
+A value of -1 for cpu.cfs_quota_us indicates that the group does not have any
+bandwidth restriction in place, such a group is described as an unconstrained
+bandwidth group. This represents the traditional work-conserving behavior for
+CFS.
+
+Writing any (valid) positive value(s) no smaller than cpu.cfs_burst_us will
+enact the specified bandwidth limit. The minimum quota allowed for the quota or
+period is 1ms. There is also an upper bound on the period length of 1s.
+Additional restrictions exist when bandwidth limits are used in a hierarchical
+fashion, these are explained in more detail below.
+
+Writing any negative value to cpu.cfs_quota_us will remove the bandwidth limit
+and return the group to an unconstrained state once more.
+
+A value of 0 for cpu.cfs_burst_us indicates that the group can not accumulate
+any unused bandwidth. It makes the traditional bandwidth control behavior for
+CFS unchanged. Writing any (valid) positive value(s) no larger than
+cpu.cfs_quota_us into cpu.cfs_burst_us will enact the cap on unused bandwidth
+accumulation.
+
+Any updates to a group's bandwidth specification will result in it becoming
+unthrottled if it is in a constrained state.
+
+System wide settings
+--------------------
+For efficiency run-time is transferred between the global pool and CPU local
+"silos" in a batch fashion. This greatly reduces global accounting pressure
+on large systems. The amount transferred each time such an update is required
+is described as the "slice".
+
+This is tunable via procfs::
+
+ /proc/sys/kernel/sched_cfs_bandwidth_slice_us (default=5ms)
+
+Larger slice values will reduce transfer overheads, while smaller values allow
+for more fine-grained consumption.
+
+Statistics
+----------
+A group's bandwidth statistics are exported via 5 fields in cpu.stat.
+
+cpu.stat:
+
+- nr_periods: Number of enforcement intervals that have elapsed.
+- nr_throttled: Number of times the group has been throttled/limited.
+- throttled_time: The total time duration (in nanoseconds) for which entities
+ of the group have been throttled.
+- nr_bursts: Number of periods burst occurs.
+- burst_time: Cumulative wall-time (in nanoseconds) that any CPUs has used
+ above quota in respective periods.
+
+This interface is read-only.
+
+Hierarchical considerations
+---------------------------
+The interface enforces that an individual entity's bandwidth is always
+attainable, that is: max(c_i) <= C. However, over-subscription in the
+aggregate case is explicitly allowed to enable work-conserving semantics
+within a hierarchy:
+
+ e.g. \Sum (c_i) may exceed C
+
+[ Where C is the parent's bandwidth, and c_i its children ]
+
+
+There are two ways in which a group may become throttled:
+
+ a. it fully consumes its own quota within a period
+ b. a parent's quota is fully consumed within its period
+
+In case b) above, even though the child may have runtime remaining it will not
+be allowed to until the parent's runtime is refreshed.
+
+CFS Bandwidth Quota Caveats
+---------------------------
+Once a slice is assigned to a cpu it does not expire. However all but 1ms of
+the slice may be returned to the global pool if all threads on that cpu become
+unrunnable. This is configured at compile time by the min_cfs_rq_runtime
+variable. This is a performance tweak that helps prevent added contention on
+the global lock.
+
+The fact that cpu-local slices do not expire results in some interesting corner
+cases that should be understood.
+
+For cgroup cpu constrained applications that are cpu limited this is a
+relatively moot point because they will naturally consume the entirety of their
+quota as well as the entirety of each cpu-local slice in each period. As a
+result it is expected that nr_periods roughly equal nr_throttled, and that
+cpuacct.usage will increase roughly equal to cfs_quota_us in each period.
+
+For highly-threaded, non-cpu bound applications this non-expiration nuance
+allows applications to briefly burst past their quota limits by the amount of
+unused slice on each cpu that the task group is running on (typically at most
+1ms per cpu or as defined by min_cfs_rq_runtime). This slight burst only
+applies if quota had been assigned to a cpu and then not fully used or returned
+in previous periods. This burst amount will not be transferred between cores.
+As a result, this mechanism still strictly limits the task group to quota
+average usage, albeit over a longer time window than a single period. This
+also limits the burst ability to no more than 1ms per cpu. This provides
+better more predictable user experience for highly threaded applications with
+small quota limits on high core count machines. It also eliminates the
+propensity to throttle these applications while simultanously using less than
+quota amounts of cpu. Another way to say this, is that by allowing the unused
+portion of a slice to remain valid across periods we have decreased the
+possibility of wastefully expiring quota on cpu-local silos that don't need a
+full slice's amount of cpu time.
+
+The interaction between cpu-bound and non-cpu-bound-interactive applications
+should also be considered, especially when single core usage hits 100%. If you
+gave each of these applications half of a cpu-core and they both got scheduled
+on the same CPU it is theoretically possible that the non-cpu bound application
+will use up to 1ms additional quota in some periods, thereby preventing the
+cpu-bound application from fully using its quota by that same amount. In these
+instances it will be up to the CFS algorithm (see sched-design-CFS.rst) to
+decide which application is chosen to run, as they will both be runnable and
+have remaining quota. This runtime discrepancy will be made up in the following
+periods when the interactive application idles.
+
+Examples
+--------
+1. Limit a group to 1 CPU worth of runtime::
+
+ If period is 250ms and quota is also 250ms, the group will get
+ 1 CPU worth of runtime every 250ms.
+
+ # echo 250000 > cpu.cfs_quota_us /* quota = 250ms */
+ # echo 250000 > cpu.cfs_period_us /* period = 250ms */
+
+2. Limit a group to 2 CPUs worth of runtime on a multi-CPU machine
+
+ With 500ms period and 1000ms quota, the group can get 2 CPUs worth of
+ runtime every 500ms::
+
+ # echo 1000000 > cpu.cfs_quota_us /* quota = 1000ms */
+ # echo 500000 > cpu.cfs_period_us /* period = 500ms */
+
+ The larger period here allows for increased burst capacity.
+
+3. Limit a group to 20% of 1 CPU.
+
+ With 50ms period, 10ms quota will be equivalent to 20% of 1 CPU::
+
+ # echo 10000 > cpu.cfs_quota_us /* quota = 10ms */
+ # echo 50000 > cpu.cfs_period_us /* period = 50ms */
+
+ By using a small period here we are ensuring a consistent latency
+ response at the expense of burst capacity.
+
+4. Limit a group to 40% of 1 CPU, and allow accumulate up to 20% of 1 CPU
+ additionally, in case accumulation has been done.
+
+ With 50ms period, 20ms quota will be equivalent to 40% of 1 CPU.
+ And 10ms burst will be equivalent to 20% of 1 CPU::
+
+ # echo 20000 > cpu.cfs_quota_us /* quota = 20ms */
+ # echo 50000 > cpu.cfs_period_us /* period = 50ms */
+ # echo 10000 > cpu.cfs_burst_us /* burst = 10ms */
+
+ Larger buffer setting (no larger than quota) allows greater burst capacity.