Re: [patch] SCHED_SOFTRR starve-free linux scheduling policy ...

From: Mike Galbraith
Date: Sun Aug 10 2003 - 01:43:15 EST


At 01:41 AM 8/10/2003 +0100, Daniel Phillips wrote:
On Saturday 09 August 2003 18:47, Mike Galbraith wrote:
> > But the patch has a much bigger problem: there is no way a SOFTRR task can
> > be realtime as long as higher priority non-realtime tasks can preempt it.
> > The new dynamic priority adjustment makes it certain that we will
> > regularly see normal tasks with priority elevated above so-called
> > realtime tasks. Even without dynamic priority adjustment, any higher
> > priority system task can unwttingly make a mockery of realtime schedules.
>
> Not so.

Yes so. A SCHED_NORMAL task with priority n can execute even when a
SCHED_FIFO/RR/SOFTRR task of priority n-1 is ready. In the case of FIFO and
RR we don't care because they're already unusable by normal users but in the
case of SOFTRR it defeats the intended realtime gaurantee.

No, _not_ so. How is the SCHED_NORMAL (didn't that used to be called SCHED_OTHER?) task ever going to receive the cpu when a realtime task is runnable given that 1. task selection is done via sched_find_first_bit(), and 2. realtime queues reside at the top of the array?

> Dynamic priority adjustment will not put a SCHED_OTHER task above
> SCHED_RR, SCHED_FIFO or SCHED_SOFTRR, so they won't preempt.

Are you sure? I suppose that depends on the particular flavor of dynamic
priority adjustment. The last I saw, dynamic priority can adjust the task
priority by 5 up or down. If I'm wrong, please show me why and hopefully
point at specific code.

See the definition of rt_task() in sched.c, and the comments in sched.h beginning at line 266.

-Mike

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