linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH BUGFIX] block, bfq: fix asymmetric scenarios detection

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Message-ID: <7023bec4-f0dc-2238-25ca-4b76edfeb0f1@kernel.dk>
Date:   Thu, 25 Oct 2018 08:18:29 -0600
From:   Jens Axboe <axboe@...nel.dk>
To:     Paolo Valente <paolo.valente@...aro.org>
Cc:     linux-block@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        ulf.hansson@...aro.org, linus.walleij@...aro.org,
        broonie@...nel.org, bfq-iosched@...glegroups.com,
        oleksandr@...alenko.name, Federico Motta <federico@...ler.it>
Subject: Re: [PATCH BUGFIX] block, bfq: fix asymmetric scenarios detection

On 10/24/18 11:13 AM, Paolo Valente wrote:
> From: Federico Motta <federico@...ler.it>
> 
> Since commit 2d29c9f89fcd ("block, bfq: improve asymmetric scenarios
> detection"), a scenario is defined asymmetric when one of the
> following conditions holds:
> - active bfq_queues have different weights
> - one or more group of entities (bfq_queue or other groups of entities)
>   are active
> bfq grants fairness and low latency also in such asymmetric scenarios,
> by plugging the dispatching of I/O if the bfq_queue in service happens
> to be temporarily idle. This plugging may lower throughput, so it is
> important to do it only when strictly needed.
> 
> By mystake, in commit '2d29c9f89fcd' ("block, bfq: improve asymmetric
> scenarios detection") the num_active_groups counter was firstly
> incremented and subsequently decremented at any entity (group or
> bfq_queue) weight change.
> 
> This is useless, because only transitions from active to inactive and
> vice versa matter for that counter. Unfortunately this is also
> incorrect in the following case: the entity at issue is a bfq_queue
> and it is under weight raising. In fact in this case there is a
> spurious increment of the num_active_groups counter.
> 
> This spurious increment may cause scenarios to be wrongly detected as
> asymmetric, thus causing useless plugging and loss of throughput.
> 
> This commit fixes this issue by simply removing the above useless and
> wrong increments and decrements.

Applied for 4.20, thanks.

-- 
Jens Axboe