linux-kernel - Re: [patch v8 3/9] sched: set initial value of runnable avg for new forked task

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Message-ID: <20130617123315.GU3204@twins.programming.kicks-ass.net>
Date:	Mon, 17 Jun 2013 14:33:15 +0200
From:	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>
To:	Lei Wen <adrian.wenl@...il.com>
Cc:	Alex Shi <alex.shi@...el.com>, mingo@...hat.com,
	tglx@...utronix.de, akpm@...ux-foundation.org, bp@...en8.de,
	pjt@...gle.com, namhyung@...nel.org, efault@....de,
	morten.rasmussen@....com, vincent.guittot@...aro.org,
	preeti@...ux.vnet.ibm.com, viresh.kumar@...aro.org,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, mgorman@...e.de, riel@...hat.com,
	wangyun@...ux.vnet.ibm.com, Jason Low <jason.low2@...com>,
	Changlong Xie <changlongx.xie@...el.com>, sgruszka@...hat.com,
	fweisbec@...il.com
Subject: Re: [patch v8 3/9] sched: set initial value of runnable avg for new
 forked task

On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 08:26:55PM +0800, Lei Wen wrote:
> Hi Peter,
> 
> > So the 'problem' is that our running avg is a 'floating' average; ie. it
> > decays with time. Now we have to guess about the future of our newly
> > spawned task -- something that is nigh impossible seeing these CPU
> > vendors keep refusing to implement the crystal ball instruction.
> 
> I am curious at this "crystal ball instruction" saying. :)
> Could it be real? I mean what kind of hw mechanism could achieve such
> magic power? What I see, for silicon vendor they could provide more
> monitor unit, but to precise predict the sw's behavior, I don't think hw
> also this kind of power...

There's indeed no known mechanism for this crystal ball instruction to
really work with. Its just something I often wish for ;-) It would make
life so much easier - although I have no experience with handling the
resulting paradoxes, so who knows :-)

> > So there's two asymptotic cases we want to deal well with; 1) the case
> > where the newly spawned program will be 'nearly' idle for its lifetime;
> > and 2) the case where its cpu-bound.
> >
> > Since we have to guess, we'll go for worst case and assume its
> > cpu-bound; now we don't want to make the avg so heavy adjusting to the
> > near-idle case takes forever. We want to be able to quickly adjust and
> > lower our running avg.
> >
> > Now we also don't want to make our avg too light, such that it gets
> > decremented just for the new task not having had a chance to run yet --
> > even if when it would run, it would be more cpu-bound than not.
> >
> > So what we do is we make the initial avg of the same duration as that we
> > guess it takes to run each task on the system at least once -- aka
> > sched_slice().
> >
> > Of course we can defeat this with wakeup/fork bombs, but in the 'normal'
> > case it should be good enough.
> >
> >
> > Does that make sense?
> 
> Thanks for your detailed explanation. Very useful indeed! :)
> 
> BTW, I have no question for the patch itself, but just confuse at the
> patch's comment
> "some tasks were not launched at once after created".

Right, I might edit that on applying to clarify things.
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