linux-kernel - Re: busted CFS group load balancer?

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Date:	Mon, 17 Nov 2008 23:33:05 -0800
From:	Ken Chen <kenchen@...gle.com>
To:	Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@...llo.nl>
Cc:	Chris Friesen <cfriesen@...tel.com>, Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: busted CFS group load balancer?

On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 9:19 PM, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> Note that with larger cpu count and/or lower group weight we'll quickly
> run into numerical trouble...
>
> I would recommend trying this with the minimum weight in the order of
> 8-16 times number of cpus on your system.
>
> There is only so much one can do with 10 bit fixed precision math :/

That is probably one of the many problems.  I also found that the
updates to the per-cpu task_group's sched_entity load weight
(tg->se[cpu]->load.weight) is very problematic and very erratic.

The total rq_weight is calculated at one beginning of tg_shares_up(),

        for_each_cpu_mask(i, sd->span) {
                rq_weight += tg->cfs_rq[i]->load.weight;
                shares += tg->cfs_rq[i]->shares;
        }

However, the scaling of per-cpu se->load.weight in function
__update_group_shares_cpu() takes another lookup of
tg->cfs_rq[cpu]->load.weight at a different time.
cfs_rq[cpu].load.weight aren't always consistent across these two
times.  Due to these inconsistency of value taken on per cpu cfs_rq,
I've see tg->se[cpu]->load.weight jumping all over the place.  In our
environment, the cpu loads are very dynamic.  Process
queuing/dequeuing at high rate.

I'm also very troubled with this calculation in __update_group_shares_cpu():

        shares = (sd_shares * rq_weight) / (sd_rq_weight + 1);

Won't you have rounding problem here?  value 'shares' will gradually
decrease for each iteration of __update_group_shares_cpu()?

- Ken
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/