linux-kernel - [PATCH] sched: loadavg 0.00, 0.01, 0.05 on idle, 1.00, 0.99, 0.95 on full load

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Date:	Thu, 28 Apr 2016 20:46:28 +0200
From:	Vik Heyndrickx <vik.heyndrickx@...ibox.net>
To:	a.p.zijlstra@...llo.nl
Cc:	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, Damien Wyart <damien.wyart@...e.fr>,
	Doug Smythies <dsmythies@...us.net>
Subject: [PATCH] sched: loadavg 0.00, 0.01, 0.05 on idle, 1.00, 0.99, 0.95 on
 full load

Hi Peter,

Systems show a minimal load average of 0.00, 0.01, 0.05 even when they 
have no load at all.

Uptime and /proc/loadavg on all systems with kernels released during the 
last five years up until kernel version 4.6-rc5, show a 5- and 15-minute 
minimum loadavg of 0.01 and 0.05 respectively. This should be 0.00 on 
idle systems, but the way the kernel calculates this value prevents it 
from getting lower than the mentioned values.

Likewise but not as obviously noticeable, a fully loaded system with no 
processes waiting, shows a maximum 1/5/15 loadavg of 1.00, 0.99, 0.95 
(multiplied by number of cores).

Once the (old) load becomes 93 or higher, it mathematically can never
get lower than 93, even when the active (load) remains 0 forever.
This results in the strange 0.00, 0.01, 0.05 uptime values on idle
systems.  Note: 93/2048 = 0.0454..., which rounds up to 0.05.

It is not correct to add a 0.5 rounding (=1024/2048) here, since the
result from this function is fed back into the next iteration again,
so the result of that +0.5 rounding value then gets multiplied by
(2048-2037), and then rounded again, so there is a virtual "ghost"
load created, next to the old and active load terms.

By changing the way the internally kept value is rounded, that internal 
value equivalent now can reach 0.00 on idle, and 1.00 on full load. Upon 
increasing load, the internally kept load value is rounded up, when the 
load is decreasing, the load value is rounded down.

The modified code was tested on nohz=off and nohz kernels. It was tested 
on vanilla kernel 4.6-rc5 and on centos 7.1 kernel 3.10.0-327. It was 
tested on single, dual, and octal cores system. It was tested on virtual 
hosts and bare hardware. No unwanted effects have been observed, and the 
problems that the patch intended to fix were indeed gone.

Fixes: 0f004f5a696a ("sched: Cure more NO_HZ load average woes")
Cc: Doug Smythies <dsmythies@...us.net>
Tested-by: Damien Wyart <damien.wyart@...e.fr>
Signed-off-by: Vik Heyndrickx <vik.heyndrickx@...ibox.net>

--- kernel/sched/loadavg.c.orig	2016-04-25 01:17:05.000000000 +0200
+++ kernel/sched/loadavg.c	2016-04-28 16:47:47.754266136 +0200
@@ -99,10 +99,12 @@ long calc_load_fold_active(struct rq *th
  static unsigned long
  calc_load(unsigned long load, unsigned long exp, unsigned long active)
  {
-	load *= exp;
-	load += active * (FIXED_1 - exp);
-	load += 1UL << (FSHIFT - 1);
-	return load >> FSHIFT;
+	long unsigned newload;
+	
+	newload = load * exp + active * (FIXED_1 - exp);
+	if (active >= load)
+		newload += FIXED_1-1;
+	return newload / FIXED_1;	
  }

  #ifdef CONFIG_NO_HZ_COMMON