Re: [PATCH] sched/fair: Prevent cfs_rq from being unthrottled with zero runtime_remaining

[Aaron Lu <ziqianlu@bytedance.com>]

On Wed, Oct 15, 2025 at 02:31:27PM +0800, Hao Jia wrote:
> On 2025/10/15 10:51, Aaron Lu wrote:
> > On Wed, Oct 15, 2025 at 09:43:20AM +0800, Hao Jia wrote:
> > ... ...
> > > Yes, I've already hit the cfs_rq->runtime_remaining < 0 condition in
> > > tg_unthrottle_up().
> > > 
> > > This morning, after applying your patch, I still get the same issue.
> > > However, As before, because cfs_rq->curr isn't NULL,
> > > check_enqueue_throttle() returns prematurely, preventing the triggering of
> > > throttle_cfs_rq().
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Some information to share with you.
> > 
> > Can you also share your cgroup setup and related quota setting etc. and
> > how to trigger it? Thanks.
> 
> I ran some internal workloads on my test machine with different quota
> settings, and added 10 sched messaging branchmark cgroups, setting their
> cpu.max to 1000 100000.
> 
> perf bench sched messaging -g 10 -t -l 50000 &
> 
> I'm not sure if the issue can be reproduced without these internal
> workloads.

Thanks for the report, I think I understand your concern now.

I managed to trigger a condition in tg_unthrottle_up() for a cfs_rq that
has runtime_enabled but with a negative runtime_remaining, the setup is
as before:

          root
        /      \
        A*     ...
     /  |  \   ...
        B
       /  \
      C*

where both A and C have quota settings.

1 Initially, both cfs_rq_a and cfs_rq_c are in unthrottled state with a
  positive runtime_remaining.
2 At some time, cfs_rq_a is throttled. cfs_rq_c is now in a throttled
  hierarchy, but it's not throttled and has a positive runtime_remaining.
3 Some time later, task @p gets enqueued to cfs_rq_c and starts execution
  in kernel mode, consumed all cfs_rq_c's runtime_remaining.
  account_cfs_rq_runtime() properly accounted, but resched_curr() doesn't
  cause schedule() -> check_cfs_rq_runtime() -> throttle_cfs_rq() to
  happen immediately, because task @p is still executing in kernel mode
  (CONFIG_PREEMPT_VOLUNTARY).
4 Some time later, cfs_rq_a is unthrottled.
  tg_unthrottle_up() noticed cfs_rq_c has a negative runtime_remaining.

In this situation, check_enqueue_throttle() will not do anything though
because cfs_rq_c->curr is set, throttle will not happen immediately so
it won't cause throttle to happen on unthrottle path.

Hao Jia,

Do I understand you correctly that you can only hit the newly added
debug warn in tg_unthrottle_up():
WARN_ON_ONCE(cfs_rq->runtime_enabled && cfs_rq->runtime_remaining <= 0);
but not throttle triggered on unthrottle path?

BTW, I think your change has the advantage of being straightforward and
easy to reason about. My concern is, it's not efficient to enqueue tasks
to a cfs_rq that has no runtime left, not sure how big a deal that is
though.

Thanks.