summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/Documentation/kernel-per-CPU-kthreads.txt
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2017-07-15 12:58:58 -0700
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2017-07-15 12:58:58 -0700
commit486088bc4689f826b80aa317b45ac9e42e8b25ee (patch)
treeadf5847a6119d24da990d9e336f005c4a316e6be /Documentation/kernel-per-CPU-kthreads.txt
parent52f6c588c77b76d548201470c2a28263a41b462b (diff)
parent43e5f7e1fa66531777c49791014c3124ea9208d8 (diff)
Merge tag 'standardize-docs' of git://git.lwn.net/linux
Pull documentation format standardization from Jonathan Corbet: "This series converts a number of top-level documents to the RST format without incorporating them into the Sphinx tree. The hope is to bring some uniformity to kernel documentation and, perhaps more importantly, have our existing docs serve as an example of the desired formatting for those that will be added later. Mauro has gone through and fixed up a lot of top-level documentation files to make them conform to the RST format, but without moving or renaming them in any way. This will help when we incorporate the ones we want to keep into the Sphinx doctree, but the real purpose is to bring a bit of uniformity to our documentation and let the top-level docs serve as examples for those writing new ones" * tag 'standardize-docs' of git://git.lwn.net/linux: (84 commits) docs: kprobes.txt: Fix whitespacing tee.txt: standardize document format cgroup-v2.txt: standardize document format dell_rbu.txt: standardize document format zorro.txt: standardize document format xz.txt: standardize document format xillybus.txt: standardize document format vfio.txt: standardize document format vfio-mediated-device.txt: standardize document format unaligned-memory-access.txt: standardize document format this_cpu_ops.txt: standardize document format svga.txt: standardize document format static-keys.txt: standardize document format smsc_ece1099.txt: standardize document format SM501.txt: standardize document format siphash.txt: standardize document format sgi-ioc4.txt: standardize document format SAK.txt: standardize document format rpmsg.txt: standardize document format robust-futexes.txt: standardize document format ...
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/kernel-per-CPU-kthreads.txt')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/kernel-per-CPU-kthreads.txt156
1 files changed, 121 insertions, 35 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/kernel-per-CPU-kthreads.txt b/Documentation/kernel-per-CPU-kthreads.txt
index 2cb7dc5c0e0d..0f00f9c164ac 100644
--- a/Documentation/kernel-per-CPU-kthreads.txt
+++ b/Documentation/kernel-per-CPU-kthreads.txt
@@ -1,27 +1,29 @@
-REDUCING OS JITTER DUE TO PER-CPU KTHREADS
+==========================================
+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
+==========
-REFERENCES
+- Documentation/IRQ-affinity.txt: Binding interrupts to sets of CPUs.
-o Documentation/IRQ-affinity.txt: Binding interrupts to sets of CPUs.
+- Documentation/cgroup-v1: Using cgroups to bind tasks to sets of CPUs.
-o Documentation/cgroup-v1: Using cgroups to bind tasks to sets of CPUs.
-
-o man taskset: Using the taskset command to bind tasks to sets
+- man taskset: Using the taskset command to bind tasks to sets
of CPUs.
-o man sched_setaffinity: Using the sched_setaffinity() system
+- man sched_setaffinity: Using the sched_setaffinity() system
call to bind tasks to sets of CPUs.
-o /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpuN/online: Control CPU N's hotplug state,
+- /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpuN/online: Control CPU N's hotplug state,
writing "0" to offline and "1" to online.
-o In order to locate kernel-generated OS jitter on CPU N:
+- 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
@@ -29,12 +31,17 @@ o In order to locate kernel-generated OS jitter on CPU N:
# run workload
cat per_cpu/cpuN/trace
+kthreads
+========
+
+Name:
+ ehca_comp/%u
-KTHREADS
+Purpose:
+ Periodically process Infiniband-related work.
-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
@@ -46,26 +53,45 @@ To reduce its OS jitter, do any of the following:
provisioned only on selected CPUs.
-Name: irq/%d-%s
-Purpose: Handle threaded interrupts.
+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.
+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.
+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:
+
+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.
@@ -76,34 +102,59 @@ TIMER_SOFTIRQ: Do all of the following:
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:
+
+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:
+
+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:
+
+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:
+
+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:
+
+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
@@ -120,7 +171,12 @@ SCHED_SOFTIRQ: Do all of the following:
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:
+
+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.
@@ -131,9 +187,15 @@ HRTIMER_SOFTIRQ: Do all of the following:
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:
+
+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
@@ -142,8 +204,10 @@ RCU_SOFTIRQ: Do at least one of the following:
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
@@ -155,15 +219,20 @@ RCU_SOFTIRQ: Do at least one of the following:
calls and by forcing both kernel threads and interrupts
to execute elsewhere.
-Name: kworker/%u:%d%s (cpu, id, priority)
-Purpose: Execute workqueue requests
+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
+ 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
@@ -173,6 +242,7 @@ To reduce its OS jitter, do any of the following:
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()
@@ -186,6 +256,7 @@ To reduce its OS jitter, do any of the following:
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
@@ -222,9 +293,14 @@ To reduce its OS jitter, do any of the following:
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.
+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
@@ -244,9 +320,14 @@ To reduce its OS jitter, do at least one of the following:
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.
+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
@@ -254,9 +335,14 @@ To reduce its OS jitter, do at least one of the following:
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.
+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