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authorDaniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>2024-04-07 18:49:45 +0000
committerDaniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>2024-04-07 18:49:45 +0000
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+==============
+OSNOISE Tracer
+==============
+
+In the context of high-performance computing (HPC), the Operating System
+Noise (*osnoise*) refers to the interference experienced by an application
+due to activities inside the operating system. In the context of Linux,
+NMIs, IRQs, SoftIRQs, and any other system thread can cause noise to the
+system. Moreover, hardware-related jobs can also cause noise, for example,
+via SMIs.
+
+hwlat_detector is one of the tools used to identify the most complex
+source of noise: *hardware noise*.
+
+In a nutshell, the hwlat_detector creates a thread that runs
+periodically for a given period. At the beginning of a period, the thread
+disables interrupt and starts sampling. While running, the hwlatd
+thread reads the time in a loop. As interrupts are disabled, threads,
+IRQs, and SoftIRQs cannot interfere with the hwlatd thread. Hence, the
+cause of any gap between two different reads of the time roots either on
+NMI or in the hardware itself. At the end of the period, hwlatd enables
+interrupts and reports the max observed gap between the reads. It also
+prints a NMI occurrence counter. If the output does not report NMI
+executions, the user can conclude that the hardware is the culprit for
+the latency. The hwlat detects the NMI execution by observing
+the entry and exit of a NMI.
+
+The osnoise tracer leverages the hwlat_detector by running a
+similar loop with preemption, SoftIRQs and IRQs enabled, thus allowing
+all the sources of *osnoise* during its execution. Using the same approach
+of hwlat, osnoise takes note of the entry and exit point of any
+source of interferences, increasing a per-cpu interference counter. The
+osnoise tracer also saves an interference counter for each source of
+interference. The interference counter for NMI, IRQs, SoftIRQs, and
+threads is increased anytime the tool observes these interferences' entry
+events. When a noise happens without any interference from the operating
+system level, the hardware noise counter increases, pointing to a
+hardware-related noise. In this way, osnoise can account for any
+source of interference. At the end of the period, the osnoise tracer
+prints the sum of all noise, the max single noise, the percentage of CPU
+available for the thread, and the counters for the noise sources.
+
+Usage
+-----
+
+Write the ASCII text "osnoise" into the current_tracer file of the
+tracing system (generally mounted at /sys/kernel/tracing).
+
+For example::
+
+ [root@f32 ~]# cd /sys/kernel/tracing/
+ [root@f32 tracing]# echo osnoise > current_tracer
+
+It is possible to follow the trace by reading the trace file::
+
+ [root@f32 tracing]# cat trace
+ # tracer: osnoise
+ #
+ # _-----=> irqs-off
+ # / _----=> need-resched
+ # | / _---=> hardirq/softirq
+ # || / _--=> preempt-depth MAX
+ # || / SINGLE Interference counters:
+ # |||| RUNTIME NOISE % OF CPU NOISE +-----------------------------+
+ # TASK-PID CPU# |||| TIMESTAMP IN US IN US AVAILABLE IN US HW NMI IRQ SIRQ THREAD
+ # | | | |||| | | | | | | | | | |
+ <...>-859 [000] .... 81.637220: 1000000 190 99.98100 9 18 0 1007 18 1
+ <...>-860 [001] .... 81.638154: 1000000 656 99.93440 74 23 0 1006 16 3
+ <...>-861 [002] .... 81.638193: 1000000 5675 99.43250 202 6 0 1013 25 21
+ <...>-862 [003] .... 81.638242: 1000000 125 99.98750 45 1 0 1011 23 0
+ <...>-863 [004] .... 81.638260: 1000000 1721 99.82790 168 7 0 1002 49 41
+ <...>-864 [005] .... 81.638286: 1000000 263 99.97370 57 6 0 1006 26 2
+ <...>-865 [006] .... 81.638302: 1000000 109 99.98910 21 3 0 1006 18 1
+ <...>-866 [007] .... 81.638326: 1000000 7816 99.21840 107 8 0 1016 39 19
+
+In addition to the regular trace fields (from TASK-PID to TIMESTAMP), the
+tracer prints a message at the end of each period for each CPU that is
+running an osnoise/ thread. The osnoise specific fields report:
+
+ - The RUNTIME IN US reports the amount of time in microseconds that
+ the osnoise thread kept looping reading the time.
+ - The NOISE IN US reports the sum of noise in microseconds observed
+ by the osnoise tracer during the associated runtime.
+ - The % OF CPU AVAILABLE reports the percentage of CPU available for
+ the osnoise thread during the runtime window.
+ - The MAX SINGLE NOISE IN US reports the maximum single noise observed
+ during the runtime window.
+ - The Interference counters display how many each of the respective
+ interference happened during the runtime window.
+
+Note that the example above shows a high number of HW noise samples.
+The reason being is that this sample was taken on a virtual machine,
+and the host interference is detected as a hardware interference.
+
+Tracer options
+---------------------
+
+The tracer has a set of options inside the osnoise directory, they are:
+
+ - osnoise/cpus: CPUs at which a osnoise thread will execute.
+ - osnoise/period_us: the period of the osnoise thread.
+ - osnoise/runtime_us: how long an osnoise thread will look for noise.
+ - osnoise/stop_tracing_us: stop the system tracing if a single noise
+ higher than the configured value happens. Writing 0 disables this
+ option.
+ - osnoise/stop_tracing_total_us: stop the system tracing if total noise
+ higher than the configured value happens. Writing 0 disables this
+ option.
+ - tracing_threshold: the minimum delta between two time() reads to be
+ considered as noise, in us. When set to 0, the default value will
+ be used, which is currently 5 us.
+
+Additional Tracing
+------------------
+
+In addition to the tracer, a set of tracepoints were added to
+facilitate the identification of the osnoise source.
+
+ - osnoise:sample_threshold: printed anytime a noise is higher than
+ the configurable tolerance_ns.
+ - osnoise:nmi_noise: noise from NMI, including the duration.
+ - osnoise:irq_noise: noise from an IRQ, including the duration.
+ - osnoise:softirq_noise: noise from a SoftIRQ, including the
+ duration.
+ - osnoise:thread_noise: noise from a thread, including the duration.
+
+Note that all the values are *net values*. For example, if while osnoise
+is running, another thread preempts the osnoise thread, it will start a
+thread_noise duration at the start. Then, an IRQ takes place, preempting
+the thread_noise, starting a irq_noise. When the IRQ ends its execution,
+it will compute its duration, and this duration will be subtracted from
+the thread_noise, in such a way as to avoid the double accounting of the
+IRQ execution. This logic is valid for all sources of noise.
+
+Here is one example of the usage of these tracepoints::
+
+ osnoise/8-961 [008] d.h. 5789.857532: irq_noise: local_timer:236 start 5789.857529929 duration 1845 ns
+ osnoise/8-961 [008] dNh. 5789.858408: irq_noise: local_timer:236 start 5789.858404871 duration 2848 ns
+ migration/8-54 [008] d... 5789.858413: thread_noise: migration/8:54 start 5789.858409300 duration 3068 ns
+ osnoise/8-961 [008] .... 5789.858413: sample_threshold: start 5789.858404555 duration 8812 ns interferences 2
+
+In this example, a noise sample of 8 microseconds was reported in the last
+line, pointing to two interferences. Looking backward in the trace, the
+two previous entries were about the migration thread running after a
+timer IRQ execution. The first event is not part of the noise because
+it took place one millisecond before.
+
+It is worth noticing that the sum of the duration reported in the
+tracepoints is smaller than eight us reported in the sample_threshold.
+The reason roots in the overhead of the entry and exit code that happens
+before and after any interference execution. This justifies the dual
+approach: measuring thread and tracing.