Re: [PATCH] sched/fair: Rate limit calls to update_blocked_averages() for NOHZ

Vincent Guittot
2021-01-28T13:58:58Z

Hi Joel,

On Wed, 27 Jan 2021 at 19:43, Joel Fernandes <joel@joelfernandes.org> wrote:
>
> Hi Vincent,
>
> On Mon, Jan 25, 2021 at 03:42:41PM +0100, Vincent Guittot wrote:
> > On Fri, 22 Jan 2021 at 20:10, Joel Fernandes <joel@joelfernandes.org> wrote:
> > > On Fri, Jan 22, 2021 at 05:56:22PM +0100, Vincent Guittot wrote:
> > > > On Fri, 22 Jan 2021 at 16:46, Joel Fernandes (Google)
> > > > <joel@joelfernandes.org> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > On an octacore ARM64 device running ChromeOS Linux kernel v5.4, I found
> > > > > that there are a lot of calls to update_blocked_averages(). This causes
> > > > > the schedule loop to slow down to taking upto 500 micro seconds at
> > > > > times (due to newidle load balance). I have also seen this manifest in
> > > > > the periodic balancer.
> > > > >
> > > > > Closer look shows that the problem is caused by the following
> > > > > ingredients:
> > > > > 1. If the system has a lot of inactive CGroups (thanks Dietmar for
> > > > > suggesting to inspect /proc/sched_debug for this), this can make
> > > > > __update_blocked_fair() take a long time.
> > > >
> > > > Inactive cgroups are removed from the list so they should not impact
> > > > the duration
> > >
> > > I meant blocked CGroups. According to this code, a cfs_rq can be partially
> > > decayed and not have any tasks running on it but its load needs to be
> > > decayed, correct? That's what I meant by 'inactive'. I can reword it to
> > > 'blocked'.
> >
> > How many blocked cgroups have you got ?
>
> I put a counter in for_each_leaf_cfs_rq_safe() { } to count how many times
> this loop runs per new idle balance. When the problem happens I see this loop
> run 35-40 times (for one single instance of newidle balance). So in total
> there are at least these many cfs_rq load updates.

Do you mean that you have 35-40 cgroups ? Or the 35-40 includes all CPUs ?

>
> I also see that new idle balance can be called 200-500 times per second.

This is not surprising because newidle_balance() is called every time
the CPU is about to become idle

>
> > >
> > > * There can be a lot of idle CPU cgroups. Don't let fully
> > > * decayed cfs_rqs linger on the list.
> > > */
> > > if (cfs_rq_is_decayed(cfs_rq))
> > > list_del_leaf_cfs_rq(cfs_rq);
> > >
> > > > > 2. The device has a lot of CPUs in a cluster which causes schedutil in a
> > > > > shared frequency domain configuration to be slower than usual. (the load
> > > >
> > > > What do you mean exactly by it causes schedutil to be slower than usual ?
> > >
> > > sugov_next_freq_shared() is order number of CPUs in the a cluster. This
> > > system is a 6+2 system with 6 CPUs in a cluster. schedutil shared policy
> > > frequency update needs to go through utilization of other CPUs in the
> > > cluster. I believe this could be adding to the problem but is not really
> > > needed to optimize if we can rate limit the calls to update_blocked_averages
> > > to begin with.
> >
> > Qais mentioned half of the time being used by
> > sugov_next_freq_shared(). Are there any frequency changes resulting in
> > this call ?
>
> I do not see a frequency update happening at the time of the problem. However
> note that sugov_iowait_boost() does run even if frequency is not being
> updated. IIRC, this function is also not that light weight and I am not sure
> if it is a good idea to call this that often.

Scheduler can't make any assumption about how often schedutil/cpufreq
wants to be called. Some are fast and straightforward and can be
called very often to adjust frequency; Others can't handle much
updates. The rate limit mechanism in schedutil and io-boost should be
there for such purpose.

>
> > > > > average updates also try to update the frequency in schedutil).
> > > > >
> > > > > 3. The CPU is running at a low frequency causing the scheduler/schedutil
> > > > > code paths to take longer than when running at a high CPU frequency.
> > > >
> > > > Low frequency usually means low utilization so it should happen that much.
> > >
> > > It happens a lot as can be seen with schbench. It is super easy to reproduce.
> >
> > Happening a lot in itself is not a problem if there is nothing else to
> > do so it's not a argument in itself
>
> It is a problem - it shows up in the preempt off critical section latency

But this point is not related to the point above which is about how
often it happens.

> tracer. Are you saying its Ok for preemption to be disabled on system for 500
> micro seconds? That hurts real-time applications (audio etc).

So. Is your problem related to real-time applications (audio etc) ?

>
> > So why is it a problem for you ? You are mentioning newly idle load
> > balance so I assume that your root problem is the scheduling delay
> > generated by the newly idle load balance which then calls
> > update_blocked_averages
>
> Yes, the new idle balance is when I see it happen quite often. I do see it
> happen with other load balance as well, but it not that often as those LB
> don't run as often as new idle balance.

The update of average blocked load has been added in newidle_balance
to take advantage of the cpu becoming idle but it seems to create a
long preempt off sequence. I 'm going to prepare a patch to move it
out the schedule path.

>
> >
> > rate limiting the call to update_blocked_averages() will only reduce
> > the number of time it happens but it will not prevent it to happen.
>
> Sure, but soft real-time issue can tolerate if the issue does not happen very
> often. In this case though, it is frequent.

Could you provide details of the problem that you are facing ? It's
not clear for me what happens in your case at the end. Have you got an
audio glitch as an example?

"Not often" doesn't really give any clue.

Also update_blocked_averages was supposed called in newlyidle_balance
when the coming idle duration is expected to be long enough

>
> > IIUC, your real problem is that newidle_balance is running whereas a
> > task is about to wake up on the cpu and we don't abort quickly during
> > this load_balance
>
> Yes.
>
> > so we could also try to abort earlier in case of newly idle load balance
>
> I think interrupts are disabled when the load balance runs, so there's no way
> for say an audio interrupt to even run in order to wake up a task. How would
> you know to abort the new idle load balance?
>
> Could you elaborate more also on the drawback of the rate limiting patch we
> posted? Do you see a side effect?

Your patch just tries to hide your problem and not to solve the root cause.

>
> > > > > sometimes, which seems overkill.
> > > > >
> > > > > schbench shows a clear improvement with the change:
> > > >
> > > > Have you got more details about your test setup ?
> > > > which platform ?
> > > > which kernel ?
> > >
> > > I mentioned in the commit message it is a v5.4 kernel.
> >
> > I was not sure if the tests results done with this kernel because we
> > usually ask for results against mainline to make sure you are not
> > facing a problem that has solved since v5.4 has been released
>
> Ok, yes I have a userspace up and running only on 5.4 kernel unfortunately. I
> was hoping that is recent enough for this debug.

more than 14 months old is not really recent... It's always good to
have a reproducer against mainline

Regards,
Vincent
>
> thanks,
>
> - Joel
>