Re: io.latency controller apparently not working

[Paolo Valente]

> Il giorno 16 ago 2019, alle ore 20:17, Paolo Valente <paolo.valente@xxxxxxxxxx> ha scritto:
> 
> 
> 
>> Il giorno 16 ago 2019, alle ore 19:59, Josef Bacik <josef@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> ha scritto:
>> 
>> On Fri, Aug 16, 2019 at 07:52:40PM +0200, Paolo Valente wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> Il giorno 16 ago 2019, alle ore 15:21, Josef Bacik <josef@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> ha scritto:
>>>> 
>>>> On Fri, Aug 16, 2019 at 12:57:41PM +0200, Paolo Valente wrote:
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>> I happened to test the io.latency controller, to make a comparison
>>>>> between this controller and BFQ.  But io.latency seems not to work,
>>>>> i.e., not to reduce latency compared with what happens with no I/O
>>>>> control at all.  Here is a summary of the results for one of the
>>>>> workloads I tested, on three different devices (latencies in ms):
>>>>> 
>>>>>           no I/O control        io.latency         BFQ
>>>>> NVMe SSD     1.9                   1.9                0.07
>>>>> SATA SSD     39                    56                 0.7
>>>>> HDD          4500                  4500               11
>>>>> 
>>>>> I have put all details on hardware, OS, scenarios and results in the
>>>>> attached pdf.  For your convenience, I'm pasting the source file too.
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Do you have the fio jobs you use for this?
>>> 
>>> The script mentioned in the draft (executed with the command line
>>> reported in the draft), executes one fio instance for the target
>>> process, and one fio instance for each interferer.  I couldn't do with
>>> just one fio instance executing all jobs, because the weight parameter
>>> doesn't work in fio jobfiles for some reason, and because the ioprio
>>> class cannot be set for individual jobs.
>>> 
>>> In particular, the script generates a job with the following
>>> parameters for the target process:
>>> 
>>> ioengine=sync
>>> loops=10000
>>> direct=0
>>> readwrite=randread
>>> fdatasync=0
>>> bs=4k
>>> thread=0
>>> filename=/mnt/scsi_debug/largefile_interfered0
>>> iodepth=1
>>> numjobs=1
>>> invalidate=1
>>> 
>>> and a job with the following parameters for each of the interferers,
>>> in case, e.g., of a workload made of reads:
>>> 
>>> ioengine=sync
>>> direct=0
>>> readwrite=read
>>> fdatasync=0
>>> bs=4k
>>> filename=/mnt/scsi_debug/largefileX
>>> invalidate=1
>>> 
>>> Should you fail to reproduce this issue by creating groups, setting
>>> latencies and starting fio jobs manually, what if you try by just
>>> executing my script?  Maybe this could help us spot the culprit more
>>> quickly.
>> 
>> Ah ok, you are doing it on a mountpoint.
> 
> Yep
> 
>> Are you using btrfs?
> 
> ext4
> 
>> Cause otherwise
>> you are going to have a sad time.
> 
> Could you elaborate more on this?  I/O seems to be controllable on ext4.
> 
>> The other thing is you are using buffered,
> 
> Actually, the problem is suffered by sync random reads, which always
> hit the disk in this test.
> 
>> which may or may not hit the disk.  This is what I use to test io.latency
>> 
>> https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/10714425/
>> 
>> I had to massage it since it didn't apply directly, but running this against the
>> actual block device, with O_DIRECT so I'm sure to be measure the actual impact
>> of the controller, it all works out fine.
> 
> I'm not getting why non-direct sync reads, or buffered writes, should
> be uncontrollable.  As a trivial example, BFQ in this tests controls
> I/O as expected, and keeps latency extremely low.
> 
> What am I missing?
> 

While waiting for your answer, I've added also the direct-I/O case to
my test.  Now we have also this new case reproduced by the command
line reported in the draft.

Even with direct I/O, nothing changes with writers as interferers,
apart from latency becoming at least equal to the case of no I/O
control for the HDD.  Summing up, with writers as interferers (latency
in ms):

            no I/O control        io.latency         BFQ
NVMe SSD     3                     3                 0.2
SATA SSD     3                     3                 0.2
HDD          56                    56                13

In contrast, there are important improvements with the SSDs, in case
of readers as interferers.  This is the new situation (latency still
in ms):

            no I/O control        io.latency         BFQ
NVMe SSD     1.9                   0.08              0.07
SATA SSD     39                    0.2               0.7
HDD          4500                  118               11

Thanks,
Paolo

> Thanks,
> Paolo
> 
>> Thanks,
>> 
>> Josef