Date:	Fri, 20 Oct 2006 05:21:58 +1000
From:	Nick Piggin <nickpiggin@...oo.com.au>
To:	Paul Jackson <pj@....com>
CC:	akpm@...l.org, mbligh@...gle.com, menage@...gle.com,
	Simon.Derr@...l.net, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, dino@...ibm.com,
	rohitseth@...gle.com, holt@....com, dipankar@...ibm.com,
	suresh.b.siddha@...el.com
Subject: Re: [RFC] cpuset: remove sched domain hooks from cpusets

Paul Jackson wrote:
> Nick wrote:
> 
>>You shouldn't need to, assuming cpusets doesn't mess it up.
> 
> 
> I'm guessing we're agreeing that the routines update_cpu_domains()
> and related code in kernel/cpuset.c are messing things up.

At the moment they are, yes.

> I view that code as a failed intrustion of some sched domain code into
> cpusets, and apparently you view that code as a failed attempt to
> manage sched domains coming from cpusets.
> 
> Oh well ... finger pointing is such fun ;).

:)

I don't know about finger pointing, but the sched-domains partitioning
works. It does what you ask of it, which is to partition the
multiprocessor balancing.

>>+	non_partitioned = top_cpuset.cpus_allowed;
>>+	update_cpu_domains_children(&top_cpuset, &non_partitioned);
>>+	partition_sched_domains(&non_partitioned);
> 
> 
> So ... instead of throwing the baby out, you want to replace it
> with a puppy.  If one attempt to overload cpu_exclusive didn't
> work, try another.

It isn't overloading anything. Your cpusets code has assigned a
particular semantic to cpu_exclusive. It so happens that we can
take advantage of this knowledge in order to do a more efficient
implementation.

It doesn't suddenly become a flag to manage sched-domains; its
semantics are completely unchanged (modulo bugs). The cpuset
interface semantics have no connection to sched-domains.

Put it this way: you don't think your code is currently
overloading the cpuset cpus_allowed setting in order to set the
task's cpus_allowed field, do you? You shouldn't need a flag to
tell it to set that, it is all just the mechanism behind the
policy.

> I have two problems with this.
> 
> 1) I haven't found any need for this, past the need to mark some
>    CPUs as isolated from the scheduler balancing code, which we
>    seem to be agreeing on, more or less, on another patch.
> 
>    Please explain why we need this or any such mechanism for user
>    space to affect sched domain partitioning.

Until very recently, the multiprocessor balancing could easily be very
stupid when faced with cpus_allowed restrictions. This is somewhat
fixed, but it is still suboptimal compared to a sched-domains partition
when you are dealing with disjoint cpusets.

It is mostly SGI who seem to be running into these balancing issues, so
I would have thought this would be helpful for your customers primarily.

I don't know of anyone else using cpusets, but I'd be interested to know.

> 2) I've had better luck with the cpuset API by adding new flags
>    when I needed some additional semantics, rather than overloading
>    existing flags.  So once we figure out what's needed and why,
>    then odds are I will suggest a new flag, specific to that purpose.

There is no new semantic beyond what is already specified by
cpu_exclusive.

> 
>    This new flag might well logically depend on the cpu_exclusive
>    setting, if that's useful.  But it would probably be a separate
>    flag or setting.
> 
>    I dislike providing explicit mechanisms via implicit side affects.

This is more like providing a specific implementation for a given
semantic.

-- 
SUSE Labs, Novell Inc.
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