Re: [PATCH 14/17] sched/eevdf: Better handle mixed slice length

[Joel Fernandes <joel@joelfernandes.org>]

On Tue, Apr 04, 2023 at 11:29:36AM +0200, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 31, 2023 at 05:26:51PM +0200, Vincent Guittot wrote:
> > On Tue, 28 Mar 2023 at 13:06, Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > In the case where (due to latency-nice) there are different request
> > > sizes in the tree, the smaller requests tend to be dominated by the
> > > larger. Also note how the EEVDF lag limits are based on r_max.
> > >
> > > Therefore; add a heuristic that for the mixed request size case, moves
> > > smaller requests to placement strategy #2 which ensures they're
> > > immidiately eligible and and due to their smaller (virtual) deadline
> > > will cause preemption.
> > >
> > > NOTE: this relies on update_entity_lag() to impose lag limits above
> > > a single slice.
> > >
> > > Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@infradead.org>
> > > ---
> > >  kernel/sched/fair.c     |   14 ++++++++++++++
> > >  kernel/sched/features.h |    1 +
> > >  kernel/sched/sched.h    |    1 +
> > >  3 files changed, 16 insertions(+)
> > >
> > > --- a/kernel/sched/fair.c
> > > +++ b/kernel/sched/fair.c
> > > @@ -616,6 +616,7 @@ avg_vruntime_add(struct cfs_rq *cfs_rq,
> > >         s64 key = entity_key(cfs_rq, se);
> > >
> > >         cfs_rq->avg_vruntime += key * weight;
> > > +       cfs_rq->avg_slice += se->slice * weight;
> > >         cfs_rq->avg_load += weight;
> > >  }
> > >
> > > @@ -626,6 +627,7 @@ avg_vruntime_sub(struct cfs_rq *cfs_rq,
> > >         s64 key = entity_key(cfs_rq, se);
> > >
> > >         cfs_rq->avg_vruntime -= key * weight;
> > > +       cfs_rq->avg_slice -= se->slice * weight;
> > >         cfs_rq->avg_load -= weight;
> > >  }
> > >
> > > @@ -4832,6 +4834,18 @@ place_entity(struct cfs_rq *cfs_rq, stru
> > >                 lag = se->vlag;
> > >
> > >                 /*
> > > +                * For latency sensitive tasks; those that have a shorter than
> > > +                * average slice and do not fully consume the slice, transition
> > > +                * to EEVDF placement strategy #2.
> > > +                */
> > > +               if (sched_feat(PLACE_FUDGE) &&
> > > +                   cfs_rq->avg_slice > se->slice * cfs_rq->avg_load) {
> > > +                       lag += vslice;
> > > +                       if (lag > 0)
> > > +                               lag = 0;
> > 
> > By using different lag policies for tasks, doesn't this create
> > unfairness between tasks ?
> 
> Possibly, I've just not managed to trigger it yet -- if it is an issue
> it can be fixed by ensuring we don't place the entity before its
> previous vruntime just like the sleeper hack later on.
> 
> > I wanted to stress this situation with a simple use case but it seems
> > that even without changing the slice, there is a fairness problem:
> > 
> > Task A always run
> > Task B loops on : running 1ms then sleeping 1ms
> > default nice and latency nice prio bot both
> > each task should get around 50% of the time.
> > 
> > The fairness is ok with tip/sched/core
> > but with eevdf, Task B only gets around 30%
> > 
> > I haven't identified the problem so far
> 
> Heh, this is actually the correct behaviour. If you have a u=1 and a
> u=.5 task, you should distribute time on a 2:1 basis, eg. 67% vs 33%.

Splitting like that sounds like starvation of the sleeper to me. If something
sleeps a lot, it will get even less CPU time on an average than it would if
there was no contention from the u=1 task.

And also CGroups will be even more weird than it already is in such a world,
2 different containers will not get CPU time distributed properly- say if
tasks in one container sleep a lot and tasks in another container are CPU
bound.

thanks,

 - Joel