Re: netperf ~50% regression with 2.6.33-rc1, bisect to 1b9508f

From: Mike Galbraith
Date: Mon Jan 25 2010 - 06:35:53 EST


On Mon, 2010-01-25 at 18:03 +0800, Lin Ming wrote:

> With above commit, the idle balance was rate limited, so CPU 15(server,
> waiting data from client) is idle at most time.
>
> CPU0(client) executes as below,
>
> try_to_wake_up
> check_preempt_curr_idle
> resched_task
> smp_send_reschedule
>
> This causes a lot of rescheduling IPI.
>
> This commit can't be reverted due to conflict, so I just add below code
> to disable "Rate-limit newidle" and the performance was recovered.
>
> diff --git a/kernel/sched.c b/kernel/sched.c
> index 18cceee..588fdef 100644
> --- a/kernel/sched.c
> +++ b/kernel/sched.c
> @@ -4421,9 +4421,6 @@ static void idle_balance(int this_cpu, struct rq *this_rq)
>
> this_rq->idle_stamp = this_rq->clock;
>
> - if (this_rq->avg_idle < sysctl_sched_migration_cost)
> - return;
> -
> for_each_domain(this_cpu, sd) {
> unsigned long interval;
>

Heh, so you should see the same thing with newidle disabled, as it was
in .31 and many kernels prior. Do you?

So. Rummaging around doing absolutely _nothing_ useful, there being
zero movable tasks in this load, prevents us switching to the idle
thread before the scheduling task is requeued. Oh joy.

Hm.... <imagines Peter's reaction to a busy wait> :) OTOH, that's what
it's _doing_ with above patch.

-Mike



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