cpuset sched_load_balance flag

Add a new per-cpuset flag called 'sched_load_balance'.

When enabled in a cpuset (the default value) it tells the kernel scheduler
that the scheduler should provide the normal load balancing on the CPUs in
that cpuset, sometimes moving tasks from one CPU to a second CPU if the
second CPU is less loaded and if that task is allowed to run there.

When disabled (write "0" to the file) then it tells the kernel scheduler
that load balancing is not required for the CPUs in that cpuset.

Now even if this flag is disabled for some cpuset, the kernel may still
have to load balance some or all the CPUs in that cpuset, if some
overlapping cpuset has its sched_load_balance flag enabled.

If there are some CPUs that are not in any cpuset whose sched_load_balance
flag is enabled, the kernel scheduler will not load balance tasks to those
CPUs.

Moreover the kernel will partition the 'sched domains' (non-overlapping
sets of CPUs over which load balancing is attempted) into the finest
granularity partition that it can find, while still keeping any two CPUs
that are in the same shed_load_balance enabled cpuset in the same element
of the partition.

This serves two purposes:
 1) It provides a mechanism for real time isolation of some CPUs, and
 2) it can be used to improve performance on systems with many CPUs
    by supporting configurations in which load balancing is not done
    across all CPUs at once, but rather only done in several smaller
    disjoint sets of CPUs.

This mechanism replaces the earlier overloading of the per-cpuset
flag 'cpu_exclusive', which overloading was removed in an earlier
patch: cpuset-remove-sched-domain-hooks-from-cpusets

See further the Documentation and comments in the code itself.

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: don't be weird]
Signed-off-by: Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com>
Acked-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>

1 files changed, 139 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/cpusets.txt b/Documentation/cpusets.txt
index 85eeab5..141bef1 100644
--- a/Documentation/cpusets.txt
+++ b/Documentation/cpusets.txt
@@ -19,7 +19,8 @@ CONTENTS:
   1.4 What are exclusive cpusets ?
   1.5 What is memory_pressure ?
   1.6 What is memory spread ?
-  1.7 How do I use cpusets ?
+  1.7 What is sched_load_balance ?
+  1.8 How do I use cpusets ?
 2. Usage Examples and Syntax
   2.1 Basic Usage
   2.2 Adding/removing cpus
@@ -359,8 +360,144 @@ policy, especially for jobs that might have one thread reading in the
 data set, the memory allocation across the nodes in the jobs cpuset
 can become very uneven.
 
+1.7 What is sched_load_balance ?
+--------------------------------
 
-1.7 How do I use cpusets ?
+The kernel scheduler (kernel/sched.c) automatically load balances
+tasks.  If one CPU is underutilized, kernel code running on that
+CPU will look for tasks on other more overloaded CPUs and move those
+tasks to itself, within the constraints of such placement mechanisms
+as cpusets and sched_setaffinity.
+
+The algorithmic cost of load balancing and its impact on key shared
+kernel data structures such as the task list increases more than
+linearly with the number of CPUs being balanced.  So the scheduler
+has support to  partition the systems CPUs into a number of sched
+domains such that it only load balances within each sched domain.
+Each sched domain covers some subset of the CPUs in the system;
+no two sched domains overlap; some CPUs might not be in any sched
+domain and hence won't be load balanced.
+
+Put simply, it costs less to balance between two smaller sched domains
+than one big one, but doing so means that overloads in one of the
+two domains won't be load balanced to the other one.
+
+By default, there is one sched domain covering all CPUs, except those
+marked isolated using the kernel boot time "isolcpus=" argument.
+
+This default load balancing across all CPUs is not well suited for
+the following two situations:
+ 1) On large systems, load balancing across many CPUs is expensive.
+    If the system is managed using cpusets to place independent jobs
+    on separate sets of CPUs, full load balancing is unnecessary.
+ 2) Systems supporting realtime on some CPUs need to minimize
+    system overhead on those CPUs, including avoiding task load
+    balancing if that is not needed.
+
+When the per-cpuset flag "sched_load_balance" is enabled (the default
+setting), it requests that all the CPUs in that cpusets allowed 'cpus'
+be contained in a single sched domain, ensuring that load balancing
+can move a task (not otherwised pinned, as by sched_setaffinity)
+from any CPU in that cpuset to any other.
+
+When the per-cpuset flag "sched_load_balance" is disabled, then the
+scheduler will avoid load balancing across the CPUs in that cpuset,
+--except-- in so far as is necessary because some overlapping cpuset
+has "sched_load_balance" enabled.
+
+So, for example, if the top cpuset has the flag "sched_load_balance"
+enabled, then the scheduler will have one sched domain covering all
+CPUs, and the setting of the "sched_load_balance" flag in any other
+cpusets won't matter, as we're already fully load balancing.
+
+Therefore in the above two situations, the top cpuset flag
+"sched_load_balance" should be disabled, and only some of the smaller,
+child cpusets have this flag enabled.
+
+When doing this, you don't usually want to leave any unpinned tasks in
+the top cpuset that might use non-trivial amounts of CPU, as such tasks
+may be artificially constrained to some subset of CPUs, depending on
+the particulars of this flag setting in descendent cpusets.  Even if
+such a task could use spare CPU cycles in some other CPUs, the kernel
+scheduler might not consider the possibility of load balancing that
+task to that underused CPU.
+
+Of course, tasks pinned to a particular CPU can be left in a cpuset
+that disables "sched_load_balance" as those tasks aren't going anywhere
+else anyway.
+
+There is an impedance mismatch here, between cpusets and sched domains.
+Cpusets are hierarchical and nest.  Sched domains are flat; they don't
+overlap and each CPU is in at most one sched domain.
+
+It is necessary for sched domains to be flat because load balancing
+across partially overlapping sets of CPUs would risk unstable dynamics
+that would be beyond our understanding.  So if each of two partially
+overlapping cpusets enables the flag 'sched_load_balance', then we
+form a single sched domain that is a superset of both.  We won't move
+a task to a CPU outside it cpuset, but the scheduler load balancing
+code might waste some compute cycles considering that possibility.
+
+This mismatch is why there is not a simple one-to-one relation
+between which cpusets have the flag "sched_load_balance" enabled,
+and the sched domain configuration.  If a cpuset enables the flag, it
+will get balancing across all its CPUs, but if it disables the flag,
+it will only be assured of no load balancing if no other overlapping
+cpuset enables the flag.
+
+If two cpusets have partially overlapping 'cpus' allowed, and only
+one of them has this flag enabled, then the other may find its
+tasks only partially load balanced, just on the overlapping CPUs.
+This is just the general case of the top_cpuset example given a few
+paragraphs above.  In the general case, as in the top cpuset case,
+don't leave tasks that might use non-trivial amounts of CPU in
+such partially load balanced cpusets, as they may be artificially
+constrained to some subset of the CPUs allowed to them, for lack of
+load balancing to the other CPUs.
+
+1.7.1 sched_load_balance implementation details.
+------------------------------------------------
+
+The per-cpuset flag 'sched_load_balance' defaults to enabled (contrary
+to most cpuset flags.)  When enabled for a cpuset, the kernel will
+ensure that it can load balance across all the CPUs in that cpuset
+(makes sure that all the CPUs in the cpus_allowed of that cpuset are
+in the same sched domain.)
+
+If two overlapping cpusets both have 'sched_load_balance' enabled,
+then they will be (must be) both in the same sched domain.
+
+If, as is the default, the top cpuset has 'sched_load_balance' enabled,
+then by the above that means there is a single sched domain covering
+the whole system, regardless of any other cpuset settings.
+
+The kernel commits to user space that it will avoid load balancing
+where it can.  It will pick as fine a granularity partition of sched
+domains as it can while still providing load balancing for any set
+of CPUs allowed to a cpuset having 'sched_load_balance' enabled.
+
+The internal kernel cpuset to scheduler interface passes from the
+cpuset code to the scheduler code a partition of the load balanced
+CPUs in the system. This partition is a set of subsets (represented
+as an array of cpumask_t) of CPUs, pairwise disjoint, that cover all
+the CPUs that must be load balanced.
+
+Whenever the 'sched_load_balance' flag changes, or CPUs come or go
+from a cpuset with this flag enabled, or a cpuset with this flag
+enabled is removed, the cpuset code builds a new such partition and
+passes it to the scheduler sched domain setup code, to have the sched
+domains rebuilt as necessary.
+
+This partition exactly defines what sched domains the scheduler should
+setup - one sched domain for each element (cpumask_t) in the partition.
+
+The scheduler remembers the currently active sched domain partitions.
+When the scheduler routine partition_sched_domains() is invoked from
+the cpuset code to update these sched domains, it compares the new
+partition requested with the current, and updates its sched domains,
+removing the old and adding the new, for each change.
+
+1.8 How do I use cpusets ?
 --------------------------
 
 In order to minimize the impact of cpusets on critical kernel