245 lines
9.6 KiB
Plaintext
245 lines
9.6 KiB
Plaintext
=============
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CFS Scheduler
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=============
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1. OVERVIEW
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CFS stands for "Completely Fair Scheduler," and is the new "desktop" process
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scheduler implemented by Ingo Molnar and merged in Linux 2.6.23. It is the
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replacement for the previous vanilla scheduler's SCHED_OTHER interactivity
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code.
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80% of CFS's design can be summed up in a single sentence: CFS basically models
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an "ideal, precise multi-tasking CPU" on real hardware.
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"Ideal multi-tasking CPU" is a (non-existent :-)) CPU that has 100% physical
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power and which can run each task at precise equal speed, in parallel, each at
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1/nr_running speed. For example: if there are 2 tasks running, then it runs
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each at 50% physical power --- i.e., actually in parallel.
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On real hardware, we can run only a single task at once, so we have to
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introduce the concept of "virtual runtime." The virtual runtime of a task
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specifies when its next timeslice would start execution on the ideal
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multi-tasking CPU described above. In practice, the virtual runtime of a task
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is its actual runtime normalized to the total number of running tasks.
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2. FEW IMPLEMENTATION DETAILS
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In CFS the virtual runtime is expressed and tracked via the per-task
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p->se.vruntime (nanosec-unit) value. This way, it's possible to accurately
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timestamp and measure the "expected CPU time" a task should have gotten.
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[ small detail: on "ideal" hardware, at any time all tasks would have the same
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p->se.vruntime value --- i.e., tasks would execute simultaneously and no task
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would ever get "out of balance" from the "ideal" share of CPU time. ]
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CFS's task picking logic is based on this p->se.vruntime value and it is thus
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very simple: it always tries to run the task with the smallest p->se.vruntime
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value (i.e., the task which executed least so far). CFS always tries to split
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up CPU time between runnable tasks as close to "ideal multitasking hardware" as
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possible.
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Most of the rest of CFS's design just falls out of this really simple concept,
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with a few add-on embellishments like nice levels, multiprocessing and various
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algorithm variants to recognize sleepers.
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3. THE RBTREE
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CFS's design is quite radical: it does not use the old data structures for the
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runqueues, but it uses a time-ordered rbtree to build a "timeline" of future
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task execution, and thus has no "array switch" artifacts (by which both the
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previous vanilla scheduler and RSDL/SD are affected).
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CFS also maintains the rq->cfs.min_vruntime value, which is a monotonic
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increasing value tracking the smallest vruntime among all tasks in the
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runqueue. The total amount of work done by the system is tracked using
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min_vruntime; that value is used to place newly activated entities on the left
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side of the tree as much as possible.
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The total number of running tasks in the runqueue is accounted through the
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rq->cfs.load value, which is the sum of the weights of the tasks queued on the
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runqueue.
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CFS maintains a time-ordered rbtree, where all runnable tasks are sorted by the
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p->se.vruntime key (there is a subtraction using rq->cfs.min_vruntime to
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account for possible wraparounds). CFS picks the "leftmost" task from this
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tree and sticks to it.
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As the system progresses forwards, the executed tasks are put into the tree
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more and more to the right --- slowly but surely giving a chance for every task
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to become the "leftmost task" and thus get on the CPU within a deterministic
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amount of time.
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Summing up, CFS works like this: it runs a task a bit, and when the task
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schedules (or a scheduler tick happens) the task's CPU usage is "accounted
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for": the (small) time it just spent using the physical CPU is added to
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p->se.vruntime. Once p->se.vruntime gets high enough so that another task
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becomes the "leftmost task" of the time-ordered rbtree it maintains (plus a
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small amount of "granularity" distance relative to the leftmost task so that we
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do not over-schedule tasks and trash the cache), then the new leftmost task is
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picked and the current task is preempted.
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4. SOME FEATURES OF CFS
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CFS uses nanosecond granularity accounting and does not rely on any jiffies or
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other HZ detail. Thus the CFS scheduler has no notion of "timeslices" in the
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way the previous scheduler had, and has no heuristics whatsoever. There is
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only one central tunable (you have to switch on CONFIG_SCHED_DEBUG):
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/proc/sys/kernel/sched_min_granularity_ns
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which can be used to tune the scheduler from "desktop" (i.e., low latencies) to
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"server" (i.e., good batching) workloads. It defaults to a setting suitable
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for desktop workloads. SCHED_BATCH is handled by the CFS scheduler module too.
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Due to its design, the CFS scheduler is not prone to any of the "attacks" that
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exist today against the heuristics of the stock scheduler: fiftyp.c, thud.c,
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chew.c, ring-test.c, massive_intr.c all work fine and do not impact
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interactivity and produce the expected behavior.
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The CFS scheduler has a much stronger handling of nice levels and SCHED_BATCH
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than the previous vanilla scheduler: both types of workloads are isolated much
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more aggressively.
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SMP load-balancing has been reworked/sanitized: the runqueue-walking
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assumptions are gone from the load-balancing code now, and iterators of the
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scheduling modules are used. The balancing code got quite a bit simpler as a
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result.
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5. Scheduling policies
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CFS implements three scheduling policies:
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- SCHED_NORMAL (traditionally called SCHED_OTHER): The scheduling
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policy that is used for regular tasks.
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- SCHED_BATCH: Does not preempt nearly as often as regular tasks
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would, thereby allowing tasks to run longer and make better use of
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caches but at the cost of interactivity. This is well suited for
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batch jobs.
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- SCHED_IDLE: This is even weaker than nice 19, but its not a true
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idle timer scheduler in order to avoid to get into priority
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inversion problems which would deadlock the machine.
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SCHED_FIFO/_RR are implemented in sched/rt.c and are as specified by
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POSIX.
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The command chrt from util-linux-ng 2.13.1.1 can set all of these except
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SCHED_IDLE.
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6. SCHEDULING CLASSES
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The new CFS scheduler has been designed in such a way to introduce "Scheduling
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Classes," an extensible hierarchy of scheduler modules. These modules
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encapsulate scheduling policy details and are handled by the scheduler core
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without the core code assuming too much about them.
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sched/fair.c implements the CFS scheduler described above.
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sched/rt.c implements SCHED_FIFO and SCHED_RR semantics, in a simpler way than
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the previous vanilla scheduler did. It uses 100 runqueues (for all 100 RT
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priority levels, instead of 140 in the previous scheduler) and it needs no
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expired array.
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Scheduling classes are implemented through the sched_class structure, which
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contains hooks to functions that must be called whenever an interesting event
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occurs.
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This is the (partial) list of the hooks:
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- enqueue_task(...)
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Called when a task enters a runnable state.
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It puts the scheduling entity (task) into the red-black tree and
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increments the nr_running variable.
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- dequeue_task(...)
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When a task is no longer runnable, this function is called to keep the
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corresponding scheduling entity out of the red-black tree. It decrements
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the nr_running variable.
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- yield_task(...)
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This function is basically just a dequeue followed by an enqueue, unless the
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compat_yield sysctl is turned on; in that case, it places the scheduling
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entity at the right-most end of the red-black tree.
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- check_preempt_curr(...)
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This function checks if a task that entered the runnable state should
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preempt the currently running task.
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- pick_next_task(...)
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This function chooses the most appropriate task eligible to run next.
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- set_curr_task(...)
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This function is called when a task changes its scheduling class or changes
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its task group.
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- task_tick(...)
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This function is mostly called from time tick functions; it might lead to
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process switch. This drives the running preemption.
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7. GROUP SCHEDULER EXTENSIONS TO CFS
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Normally, the scheduler operates on individual tasks and strives to provide
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fair CPU time to each task. Sometimes, it may be desirable to group tasks and
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provide fair CPU time to each such task group. For example, it may be
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desirable to first provide fair CPU time to each user on the system and then to
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each task belonging to a user.
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CONFIG_CGROUP_SCHED strives to achieve exactly that. It lets tasks to be
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grouped and divides CPU time fairly among such groups.
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CONFIG_RT_GROUP_SCHED permits to group real-time (i.e., SCHED_FIFO and
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SCHED_RR) tasks.
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CONFIG_FAIR_GROUP_SCHED permits to group CFS (i.e., SCHED_NORMAL and
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SCHED_BATCH) tasks.
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These options need CONFIG_CGROUPS to be defined, and let the administrator
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create arbitrary groups of tasks, using the "cgroup" pseudo filesystem. See
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Documentation/cgroups/cgroups.txt for more information about this filesystem.
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When CONFIG_FAIR_GROUP_SCHED is defined, a "cpu.shares" file is created for each
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group created using the pseudo filesystem. See example steps below to create
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task groups and modify their CPU share using the "cgroups" pseudo filesystem.
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# mount -t tmpfs cgroup_root /sys/fs/cgroup
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# mkdir /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu
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# mount -t cgroup -ocpu none /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu
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# cd /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu
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# mkdir multimedia # create "multimedia" group of tasks
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# mkdir browser # create "browser" group of tasks
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# #Configure the multimedia group to receive twice the CPU bandwidth
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# #that of browser group
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# echo 2048 > multimedia/cpu.shares
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# echo 1024 > browser/cpu.shares
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# firefox & # Launch firefox and move it to "browser" group
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# echo <firefox_pid> > browser/tasks
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# #Launch gmplayer (or your favourite movie player)
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# echo <movie_player_pid> > multimedia/tasks
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