linux-kernel - Re: [patch 2/2] sched: fix nr_uninterruptible accounting of frozen tasks really

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Date:	Sat, 18 Jul 2009 18:59:55 -0500
From:	Nathan Lynch <ntl@...ox.com>
To:	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>
Cc:	Matt Helsley <matthltc@...ibm.com>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Rafael Wysocki <rjw@...k.pl>, Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>,
	Nigel Cunningham <nigel@...onice.net>, stable@...nel.org,
	containers@...ts.linux-foundation.org,
	linux-pm@...ts.linux-foundation.org
Subject: Re: [patch 2/2] sched: fix nr_uninterruptible accounting of frozen
 tasks really

On Sat, 2009-07-18 at 14:56 +0200, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> On Fri, 2009-07-17 at 15:55 -0500, Nathan Lynch wrote:
> > On Fri, 2009-07-17 at 18:47 +0200, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> > > On Fri, 2009-07-17 at 08:22 -0700, Matt Helsley wrote:
> > > 
> > > > The job scheduler in question does not use FROZEN as a transient state and
> > > > does not use checkpoint/restart at all since c/r is still a work in progress.
> > 
> > Right, the job scheduler uses the cgroup freezer as a mechanism to
> > preempt a low priority job for a higher priority job.  (It had used
> > SIGSTOP in the past.)  So in this scenario a frozen cgroup may remain in
> > that state for a while.  Load average is consulted as a measure of
> > system utilization.
> 
> I think that this is an utterly broken use for it, if you want something
> like that make a signal cgroup or something and deliver SIGSTOP to all
> of them.
> 
> In other words, why is the freezer any better than the SIGSTOP approach?

Documentation/cgroups/freezer-subsystem.txt happens to document this use
case and the disadvantages of SIGSTOP/SIGCONT.  Does that change your
opinion at all?


> > > > Even when used for power management it seems wrong to count frozen tasks
> > > > towards the loadavg since they aren't using CPU time or waiting for IO.
> > > 
> > > You're abusing it for _WHAT_?
> > 
> > I think Matt was referring to system-wide suspend/resume/hibernate, not
> > a behavior of the job scheduler, if that's your concern.
> 
> I understood he referred to the crazy use-case you mentioned above, IMHO
> frozen should be a temporary state used for things like
> snapshot/migrate.

But snapshot (or checkpoint) and migration aren't possible with mainline
at this time.  As far as I know, the use case to which you object is the
primary use of the cgroup freezer on production systems.


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