linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] sched/cputime: Make IRQ time accounting configurable at boot time

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Date:   Fri, 16 Jun 2023 07:41:25 -0700
From:   Bart Van Assche <bvanassche@....org>
To:     Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>
Cc:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>,
        Juri Lelli <juri.lelli@...hat.com>,
        Vincent Guittot <vincent.guittot@...aro.org>,
        Dietmar Eggemann <dietmar.eggemann@....com>,
        Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] sched/cputime: Make IRQ time accounting configurable at
 boot time

On 6/16/23 00:45, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 15, 2023 at 01:37:26PM -0700, Bart Van Assche wrote:
>> Some producers of Android devices want IRQ time accounting enabled while
>> others want IRQ time accounting disabled. Hence, make IRQ time accounting
>> configurable at boot time.
> 
> Why would they want this disabled? IRQ time accounting avoids a number
> of issues under high irq/softirq pressure.
> 
> Disabling this makes no sense.

This is why disabling IRQ time accounting makes a ton of sense to me:
* If disabling IRQ time accounting would not be useful, there wouldn't
   be a kernel configuration option that controls whether it is enabled
   or disabled - it would be enabled all the time.
* If enabling IRQ time accounting would be essential, all Linux
   distributors would enable it. In the x86 kernels I checked, IRQ time
   accounting is disabled (Debian and openSUSE).
* For x86 there is already a kernel parameter for disabling IRQ time
   accounting (tsc=noirqtime).
* Modern hardware, e.g. UFSHCI 4.0 controllers, supports sending the
   completion interrupt to the CPU core that submitted the I/O. With such
   hardware IRQ overload (100% spent in IRQ handlers and 0% outside IRQ
   handlers) is impossible because the submitter is slowed down by the
   completion interrupts.
* The performance overhead of CONFIG_IRQ_TIME_ACCOUNTING is
   unacceptable. A quick test in an x86 VM shows that enabling
   CONFIG_IRQ_TIME_ACCOUNTING reduces IOPS by 10% (220K -> 200K). On an
   Android setup I measured an IOPS reduction of 40% (100K -> 60K) due
   to CONFIG_IRQ_TIME_ACCOUNTING. This is not acceptable.

Thanks,

Bart.