linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 4/6] tick/nohz: Move nohz_full related fields out of hot task struct's places

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Message-ID: <aGPR5srdOX8UWakS@localhost.localdomain>
Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2025 14:17:42 +0200
From: Frederic Weisbecker <frederic@...nel.org>
To: Shrikanth Hegde <sshegde@...ux.ibm.com>
Cc: LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>,
	Marcelo Tosatti <mtosatti@...hat.com>,
	Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>, Oleg Nesterov <oleg@...hat.com>,
	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Valentin Schneider <vschneid@...hat.com>,
	Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>, linux-mm@...ck.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 4/6] tick/nohz: Move nohz_full related fields out of hot
 task struct's places

Le Thu, Apr 24, 2025 at 12:10:26AM +0530, Shrikanth Hegde a écrit :
> 
> 
> On 4/10/25 20:53, Frederic Weisbecker wrote:
> > nohz_full is a feature that only fits into rare and very corner cases.
> > Yet distros enable it by default and therefore the related fields are
> > always reserved in the task struct.
> > 
> > Those task fields are stored in the middle of cacheline hot places such
> > as cputime accounting and context switch counting, which doesn't make
> > any sense for a feature that is disabled most of the time.
> > 
> > Move the nohz_full storage to colder places.
> > 
> > Signed-off-by: Frederic Weisbecker <frederic@...nel.org>
> > ---
> >   include/linux/sched.h | 14 ++++++++------
> >   1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)
> > 
> > diff --git a/include/linux/sched.h b/include/linux/sched.h
> > index f96ac1982893..b5ce76db6d75 100644
> > --- a/include/linux/sched.h
> > +++ b/include/linux/sched.h
> > @@ -1110,13 +1110,7 @@ struct task_struct {
> >   #endif
> >   	u64				gtime;
> >   	struct prev_cputime		prev_cputime;
> > -#ifdef CONFIG_VIRT_CPU_ACCOUNTING_GEN
> > -	struct vtime			vtime;
> > -#endif
> > -#ifdef CONFIG_NO_HZ_FULL
> > -	atomic_t			tick_dep_mask;
> > -#endif
> >   	/* Context switch counts: */
> >   	unsigned long			nvcsw;
> >   	unsigned long			nivcsw;
> > @@ -1438,6 +1432,14 @@ struct task_struct {
> >   	struct task_delay_info		*delays;
> >   #endif
> > +#ifdef CONFIG_VIRT_CPU_ACCOUNTING_GEN
> > +	struct vtime			vtime;
> > +#endif
> > +
> > +#ifdef CONFIG_NO_HZ_FULL
> > +	atomic_t			tick_dep_mask;
> > +#endif
> > +
> >   #ifdef CONFIG_FAULT_INJECTION
> >   	int				make_it_fail;
> >   	unsigned int			fail_nth;
> > 
> 
> Hi Frederic.
> 
> maybe move these nohz related fields into their own cacheline instead?
> 
> 
> on PowerPC where we have 128byte cache instead, i see
> these fields are crossing a cache line boundary.
> 
> without patch:
> 	/* XXX last struct has 4 bytes of padding */
> 
> 	struct vtime               vtime;                /*  2360    48 */
> 	atomic_t                   tick_dep_mask;        /*  2408     4 */
> 	/* XXX 4 bytes hole, try to pack */
> 
> 	long unsigned int          nvcsw;                /*  2416     8 */
> 	long unsigned int          nivcsw;               /*  2424     8 */
> 	/* --- cacheline 19 boundary (2432 bytes) --- */
> 
> 
> With patch:
> 	struct vtime               vtime;                /*  3272    48 */
> 	struct callback_head       nohz_full_work;       /*  3320    16 */
> 	/* --- cacheline 26 boundary (3328 bytes) was 8 bytes ago --- */
> 	atomic_t                   tick_dep_mask;        /*  3336     4 */
> 

It's not much a big deal because those fields shouldn't be accessed much
closely in time. Also such a cache alignement is hard to maintain everywhere
when there are so many ifdefferies in that structure.

Thanks.

-- 
Frederic Weisbecker
SUSE Labs