Go to file
Daniel Bristot de Oliveira c2ba8a15f3 jump_label: Batch updates if arch supports it
If the architecture supports the batching of jump label updates, use it!

An easy way to see the benefits of this patch is switching the
schedstats on and off. For instance:

-------------------------- %< ----------------------------
  #!/bin/sh
  while [ true ]; do
      sysctl -w kernel.sched_schedstats=1
      sleep 2
      sysctl -w kernel.sched_schedstats=0
      sleep 2
  done
-------------------------- >% ----------------------------

while watching the IPI count:

-------------------------- %< ----------------------------
  # watch -n1 "cat /proc/interrupts | grep Function"
-------------------------- >% ----------------------------

With the current mode, it is possible to see +- 168 IPIs each 2 seconds,
while with this patch the number of IPIs goes to 3 each 2 seconds.

Regarding the performance impact of this patch set, I made two measurements:

    The time to update a key (the task that is causing the change)
    The time to run the int3 handler (the side effect on a thread that
                                      hits the code being changed)

The schedstats static key was chosen as the key to being switched on and off.
The reason being is that it is used in more than 56 places, in a hot path. The
change in the schedstats static key will be done with the following command:

while [ true ]; do
    sysctl -w kernel.sched_schedstats=1
    usleep 500000
    sysctl -w kernel.sched_schedstats=0
    usleep 500000
done

In this way, they key will be updated twice per second. To force the hit of the
int3 handler, the system will also run a kernel compilation with two jobs per
CPU. The test machine is a two nodes/24 CPUs box with an Intel Xeon processor
@2.27GHz.

Regarding the update part, on average, the regular kernel takes 57 ms to update
the schedstats key, while the kernel with the batch updates takes just 1.4 ms
on average. Although it seems to be too good to be true, it makes sense: the
schedstats key is used in 56 places, so it was expected that it would take
around 56 times to update the keys with the current implementation, as the
IPIs are the most expensive part of the update.

Regarding the int3 handler, the non-batch handler takes 45 ns on average, while
the batch version takes around 180 ns. At first glance, it seems to be a high
value. But it is not, considering that it is doing 56 updates, rather than one!
It is taking four times more, only. This gain is possible because the patch
uses a binary search in the vector: log2(56)=5.8. So, it was expected to have
an overhead within four times.

(voice of tv propaganda) But, that is not all! As the int3 handler keeps on for
a shorter period (because the update part is on for a shorter time), the number
of hits in the int3 handler decreased by 10%.

The question then is: Is it worth paying the price of "135 ns" more in the int3
handler?

Considering that, in this test case, we are saving the handling of 53 IPIs,
that takes more than these 135 ns, it seems to be a meager price to be paid.
Moreover, the test case was forcing the hit of the int3, in practice, it
does not take that often. While the IPI takes place on all CPUs, hitting
the int3 handler or not!

For instance, in an isolated CPU with a process running in user-space
(nohz_full use-case), the chances of hitting the int3 handler is barely zero,
while there is no way to avoid the IPIs. By bounding the IPIs, we are improving
a lot this scenario.

Signed-off-by: Daniel Bristot de Oliveira <bristot@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>
Cc: Chris von Recklinghausen <crecklin@redhat.com>
Cc: Clark Williams <williams@redhat.com>
Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Cc: H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com>
Cc: Jason Baron <jbaron@akamai.com>
Cc: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
Cc: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Marcelo Tosatti <mtosatti@redhat.com>
Cc: Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@kernel.org>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: Scott Wood <swood@redhat.com>
Cc: Steven Rostedt (VMware) <rostedt@goodmis.org>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/acc891dbc2dbc9fd616dd680529a2337b1d1274c.1560325897.git.bristot@redhat.com
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>
2019-06-17 12:09:22 +02:00
Documentation Linux 5.2-rc5 2019-06-17 12:06:34 +02:00
LICENSES LICENSES: Rename other to deprecated 2019-05-03 06:34:32 -06:00
arch x86/alternative: Batch of patch operations 2019-06-17 12:09:21 +02:00
block blk-mq: remove WARN_ON(!q->elevator) from blk_mq_sched_free_requests 2019-06-13 03:05:58 -06:00
certs treewide: Replace GPLv2 boilerplate/reference with SPDX - rule 36 2019-05-24 17:27:11 +02:00
crypto SPDX update for 5.2-rc4 2019-06-08 12:52:42 -07:00
drivers Linux 5.2-rc5 2019-06-17 12:06:34 +02:00
fs Fix rounding error in gfs2_iomap_page_prepare 2019-06-14 17:27:12 -10:00
include jump_label: Batch updates if arch supports it 2019-06-17 12:09:22 +02:00
init Linux 5.2-rc5 2019-06-17 12:06:34 +02:00
ipc treewide: Replace GPLv2 boilerplate/reference with SPDX - rule 441 2019-06-05 17:37:17 +02:00
kernel jump_label: Batch updates if arch supports it 2019-06-17 12:09:22 +02:00
lib Linux 5.2-rc5 2019-06-17 12:06:34 +02:00
mm Merge branch 'x86-urgent-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip 2019-06-16 07:28:14 -10:00
net SPDX update for 5.2-rc4 2019-06-08 12:52:42 -07:00
samples SPDX update for 5.2-rc4 2019-06-08 12:52:42 -07:00
scripts scripts/decode_stacktrace.sh: prefix addr2line with $CROSS_COMPILE 2019-06-13 17:34:56 -10:00
security Smack: Restore the smackfsdef mount option and add missing prefixes 2019-06-14 14:25:04 -10:00
sound sound fixes for 5.2-rc5 2019-06-14 05:37:06 -10:00
tools mm/devm_memremap_pages: fix final page put race 2019-06-13 17:34:56 -10:00
usr user/Makefile: Fix typo and capitalization in comment section 2018-12-11 00:18:03 +09:00
virt treewide: Replace GPLv2 boilerplate/reference with SPDX - rule 333 2019-06-05 17:37:06 +02:00
.clang-format Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/davem/net 2019-04-17 11:26:25 -07:00
.cocciconfig
.get_maintainer.ignore Opt out of scripts/get_maintainer.pl 2019-05-16 10:53:40 -07:00
.gitattributes .gitattributes: set git diff driver for C source code files 2016-10-07 18:46:30 -07:00
.gitignore .gitignore: exclude .get_maintainer.ignore and .gitattributes 2019-05-18 11:49:54 +09:00
.mailmap A reasonably busy cycle for docs, including: 2019-05-08 12:42:50 -07:00
COPYING COPYING: use the new text with points to the license files 2018-03-23 12:41:45 -06:00
CREDITS MAINTAINERS: Farewell Martin Schwidefsky 2019-05-31 10:14:11 +02:00
Kbuild Kbuild updates for v5.1 2019-03-10 17:48:21 -07:00
Kconfig kconfig: move the "Executable file formats" menu to fs/Kconfig.binfmt 2018-08-02 08:06:55 +09:00
MAINTAINERS Merge branch 'i2c/for-current' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/wsa/linux 2019-06-08 12:48:49 -07:00
Makefile Linux 5.2-rc5 2019-06-16 08:49:45 -10:00
README Drop all 00-INDEX files from Documentation/ 2018-09-09 15:08:58 -06:00

README

Linux kernel
============

There are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can
be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. Please read
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst first.

In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``.  The formatted documentation can also be read online at:

    https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/

There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the Restructured Text markup notation.

Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.