131 lines
4.6 KiB
ReStructuredText
131 lines
4.6 KiB
ReStructuredText
================
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Delay accounting
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================
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Tasks encounter delays in execution when they wait
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for some kernel resource to become available e.g. a
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runnable task may wait for a free CPU to run on.
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The per-task delay accounting functionality measures
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the delays experienced by a task while
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a) waiting for a CPU (while being runnable)
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b) completion of synchronous block I/O initiated by the task
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c) swapping in pages
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d) memory reclaim
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e) thrashing
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f) direct compact
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g) write-protect copy
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and makes these statistics available to userspace through
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the taskstats interface.
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Such delays provide feedback for setting a task's cpu priority,
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io priority and rss limit values appropriately. Long delays for
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important tasks could be a trigger for raising its corresponding priority.
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The functionality, through its use of the taskstats interface, also provides
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delay statistics aggregated for all tasks (or threads) belonging to a
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thread group (corresponding to a traditional Unix process). This is a commonly
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needed aggregation that is more efficiently done by the kernel.
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Userspace utilities, particularly resource management applications, can also
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aggregate delay statistics into arbitrary groups. To enable this, delay
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statistics of a task are available both during its lifetime as well as on its
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exit, ensuring continuous and complete monitoring can be done.
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Interface
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---------
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Delay accounting uses the taskstats interface which is described
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in detail in a separate document in this directory. Taskstats returns a
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generic data structure to userspace corresponding to per-pid and per-tgid
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statistics. The delay accounting functionality populates specific fields of
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this structure. See
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include/uapi/linux/taskstats.h
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for a description of the fields pertaining to delay accounting.
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It will generally be in the form of counters returning the cumulative
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delay seen for cpu, sync block I/O, swapin, memory reclaim, thrash page
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cache, direct compact, write-protect copy etc.
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Taking the difference of two successive readings of a given
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counter (say cpu_delay_total) for a task will give the delay
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experienced by the task waiting for the corresponding resource
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in that interval.
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When a task exits, records containing the per-task statistics
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are sent to userspace without requiring a command. If it is the last exiting
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task of a thread group, the per-tgid statistics are also sent. More details
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are given in the taskstats interface description.
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The getdelays.c userspace utility in tools/accounting directory allows simple
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commands to be run and the corresponding delay statistics to be displayed. It
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also serves as an example of using the taskstats interface.
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Usage
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-----
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Compile the kernel with::
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CONFIG_TASK_DELAY_ACCT=y
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CONFIG_TASKSTATS=y
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Delay accounting is disabled by default at boot up.
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To enable, add::
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delayacct
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to the kernel boot options. The rest of the instructions below assume this has
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been done. Alternatively, use sysctl kernel.task_delayacct to switch the state
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at runtime. Note however that only tasks started after enabling it will have
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delayacct information.
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After the system has booted up, use a utility
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similar to getdelays.c to access the delays
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seen by a given task or a task group (tgid).
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The utility also allows a given command to be
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executed and the corresponding delays to be
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seen.
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General format of the getdelays command::
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getdelays [-dilv] [-t tgid] [-p pid]
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Get delays, since system boot, for pid 10::
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# ./getdelays -d -p 10
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(output similar to next case)
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Get sum of delays, since system boot, for all pids with tgid 5::
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# ./getdelays -d -t 5
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print delayacct stats ON
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TGID 5
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CPU count real total virtual total delay total delay average
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8 7000000 6872122 3382277 0.423ms
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IO count delay total delay average
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0 0 0ms
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SWAP count delay total delay average
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0 0 0ms
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RECLAIM count delay total delay average
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0 0 0ms
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THRASHING count delay total delay average
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0 0 0ms
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COMPACT count delay total delay average
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0 0 0ms
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WPCOPY count delay total delay average
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0 0 0ms
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Get IO accounting for pid 1, it works only with -p::
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# ./getdelays -i -p 1
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printing IO accounting
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linuxrc: read=65536, write=0, cancelled_write=0
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The above command can be used with -v to get more debug information.
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