linux-kernel - Re: question about cpusets vs sched

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Date:	Fri, 11 Dec 2015 17:26:48 -0600
From:	Chris Friesen <cbf123@...l.usask.ca>
To:	Jason Baron <jbaron@...mai.com>,
	"linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org >> lkml" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
CC:	Tejun Heo <tj@...nel.org>, lizefan@...wei.com
Subject: Re: question about cpusets vs sched_setaffinity()

On 12/11/2015 04:15 PM, Jason Baron wrote:
> On 12/10/2015 04:30 PM, Chris Friesen wrote:

>> If I put a task into a cpuset and then call sched_setaffinity() on it,
>> it will be affined to the intersection of the two sets of cpus.  (Those
>> specified on the set, and those specified in the syscall.)
>>
>> However, if I then change the cpus in the cpuset the process affinity
>> will simply be overwritten by the new cpuset affinity.  It does not seem
>> to take into account any restrictions from the original
>> sched_setaffinity() call.
>>
>> Wouldn't it make more sense to affine the process to the intersection
>> between the new set of cpus from the cpuset, and the current process
>> affinity?  That way if I explicitly masked out certain CPUs in the
>> original sched_setaffinity() call then they would remain masked out
>> regardless of changes to the set of cpus assigned to the cpuset.

<snip>

> To add the behavior you are describing, I think requires another
> cpumask_t field in the task_struct. Where we could store the last
> requested mask value for sched_setaffinity() and use that when updating
> the cpus for a cpuset via an intersection as you described. I think
> adding a task to a cpuset still should wipe out any sched_setaffinity()
> settings - but that would depend on the desired semantics here. It would
> also require a knob so as not to break existing behavior by default.

Agreed, the additional field in the task_struct makes sense.  Personally I don't 
think that adding a task to a cpuset should wipe out any previously-set 
affinity, I think it should take the intersection for that case as well.

In this environment it might make sense to have separate queries to return the 
requested and actual affinity.

> You could also create a child cgroup for the process that you don't want
> to change and set the cpus on that cgroup instead of using
> sched_setaffinity(). Then you change the cpus for the parent cgroup and
> that shouldn't affect the child as long as the child cgroup is a subset.
> But its not entirely clear to me if that addresses your use-case?

I ended up doing something like this where I had a top-level cpuset and a number 
of child cpusets, each with an exclusive subset of the CPUs assigned to it.  But 
it meant that I needed more complicated code to figure out which tasks needed to 
go into which child cpusets, and more complicated code to handle removing a CPU 
from the top-level cpuset (since you have to remove it from any children first).

Chris
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