Add Documentation/scheduler/sched-ext.rst which gives a high-level overview
and pointers to the examples.
v6: - Add paragraph explaining debug dump.
v5: - Updated to reflect /sys/kernel interface change. Kconfig options
added.
v4: - README improved, reformatted in markdown and renamed to README.md.
v3: - Added tools/sched_ext/README.
- Dropped _example prefix from scheduler names.
v2: - Apply minor edits suggested by Bagas. Caveats section dropped as all
of them are addressed.
Signed-off-by: Tejun Heo <tj@xxxxxxxxxx>
Reviewed-by: David Vernet <dvernet@xxxxxxxx>
Acked-by: Josh Don <joshdon@xxxxxxxxxx>
Acked-by: Hao Luo <haoluo@xxxxxxxxxx>
Acked-by: Barret Rhoden <brho@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Bagas Sanjaya <bagasdotme@xxxxxxxxx>
---
Documentation/scheduler/index.rst | 1 +
Documentation/scheduler/sched-ext.rst | 314 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++
include/linux/sched/ext.h | 2 +
kernel/Kconfig.preempt | 1 +
kernel/sched/ext.c | 2 +
kernel/sched/ext.h | 2 +
tools/sched_ext/README.md | 258 +++++++++++++++++++++
7 files changed, 580 insertions(+)
create mode 100644 Documentation/scheduler/sched-ext.rst
create mode 100644 tools/sched_ext/README.md
diff --git a/Documentation/scheduler/index.rst b/Documentation/scheduler/index.rst
index 43bd8a145b7a..0611dc3dda8e 100644
--- a/Documentation/scheduler/index.rst
+++ b/Documentation/scheduler/index.rst
@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@ Scheduler
sched-nice-design
sched-rt-group
sched-stats
+ sched-ext
sched-debug
text_files
diff --git a/Documentation/scheduler/sched-ext.rst b/Documentation/scheduler/sched-ext.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..497eeaa5ecbe
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/scheduler/sched-ext.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,314 @@
+==========================
+Extensible Scheduler Class
+==========================
+
+sched_ext is a scheduler class whose behavior can be defined by a set of BPF
+programs - the BPF scheduler.
+
+* sched_ext exports a full scheduling interface so that any scheduling
+ algorithm can be implemented on top.
+
+* The BPF scheduler can group CPUs however it sees fit and schedule them
+ together, as tasks aren't tied to specific CPUs at the time of wakeup.
+
+* The BPF scheduler can be turned on and off dynamically anytime.
+
+* The system integrity is maintained no matter what the BPF scheduler does.
+ The default scheduling behavior is restored anytime an error is detected,
+ a runnable task stalls, or on invoking the SysRq key sequence
+ :kbd:`SysRq-S`.
+
+* When the BPF scheduler triggers an error, debug information is dumped to
+ aid debugging. The debug dump is passed to and printed out by the
+ scheduler binary. The debug dump can also be accessed through the
+ `sched_ext_dump` tracepoint. The SysRq key sequence :kbd:`SysRq-D`
+ triggers a debug dump. This doesn't terminate the BPF scheduler and can
+ only be read through the tracepoint.
+
+Switching to and from sched_ext
+===============================
+
+``CONFIG_SCHED_CLASS_EXT`` is the config option to enable sched_ext and
+``tools/sched_ext`` contains the example schedulers. The following config
+options should be enabled to use sched_ext:
+
+.. code-block:: none
+
+ CONFIG_BPF=y
+ CONFIG_SCHED_CLASS_EXT=y
+ CONFIG_BPF_SYSCALL=y
+ CONFIG_BPF_JIT=y
+ CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO_BTF=y
+ CONFIG_BPF_JIT_ALWAYS_ON=y
+ CONFIG_BPF_JIT_DEFAULT_ON=y
+ CONFIG_PAHOLE_HAS_SPLIT_BTF=y
+ CONFIG_PAHOLE_HAS_BTF_TAG=y
+
+sched_ext is used only when the BPF scheduler is loaded and running.
+
+If a task explicitly sets its scheduling policy to ``SCHED_EXT``, it will be
+treated as ``SCHED_NORMAL`` and scheduled by CFS until the BPF scheduler is
+loaded. On load, such tasks will be switched to and scheduled by sched_ext.
+
+The BPF scheduler can choose to schedule all normal and lower class tasks by
+calling ``scx_bpf_switch_all()`` from its ``init()`` operation. In this
+case, all ``SCHED_NORMAL``, ``SCHED_BATCH``, ``SCHED_IDLE`` and
+``SCHED_EXT`` tasks are scheduled by sched_ext. In the example schedulers,
+this mode can be selected with the ``-a`` option.
+
+Terminating the sched_ext scheduler program, triggering :kbd:`SysRq-S`, or
+detection of any internal error including stalled runnable tasks aborts the
+BPF scheduler and reverts all tasks back to CFS.
+
+.. code-block:: none
+
+ # make -j16 -C tools/sched_ext
+ # tools/sched_ext/scx_simple
+ local=0 global=3
+ local=5 global=24
+ local=9 global=44
+ local=13 global=56
+ local=17 global=72
+ ^CEXIT: BPF scheduler unregistered
+
+The current status of the BPF scheduler can be determined as follows:
+
+.. code-block:: none
+
+ # cat /sys/kernel/sched_ext/state
+ enabled
+ # cat /sys/kernel/sched_ext/root/ops
+ simple
+
+``tools/sched_ext/scx_show_state.py`` is a drgn script which shows more
+detailed information:
+
+.. code-block:: none
+
+ # tools/sched_ext/scx_show_state.py
+ ops : simple
+ enabled : 1
+ switching_all : 1
+ switched_all : 1
+ enable_state : enabled (2)
+ bypass_depth : 0
+ nr_rejected : 0
+
+If ``CONFIG_SCHED_DEBUG`` is set, whether a given task is on sched_ext can
+be determined as follows:
+
+.. code-block:: none
+
+ # grep ext /proc/self/sched
+ ext.enabled : 1
+
+The Basics
+==========
+
+Userspace can implement an arbitrary BPF scheduler by loading a set of BPF
+programs that implement ``struct sched_ext_ops``. The only mandatory field
+is ``ops.name`` which must be a valid BPF object name. All operations are
+optional. The following modified excerpt is from
+``tools/sched/scx_simple.bpf.c`` showing a minimal global FIFO scheduler.
+
+.. code-block:: c
+
+ /*
+ * Decide which CPU a task should be migrated to before being
+ * enqueued (either at wakeup, fork time, or exec time). If an
+ * idle core is found by the default ops.select_cpu() implementation,
+ * then dispatch the task directly to SCX_DSQ_LOCAL and skip the
+ * ops.enqueue() callback.
+ *
+ * Note that this implementation has exactly the same behavior as the
+ * default ops.select_cpu implementation. The behavior of the scheduler
+ * would be exactly same if the implementation just didn't define the
+ * simple_select_cpu() struct_ops prog.
+ */
+ s32 BPF_STRUCT_OPS(simple_select_cpu, struct task_struct *p,
+ s32 prev_cpu, u64 wake_flags)
+ {
+ s32 cpu;
+ /* Need to initialize or the BPF verifier will reject the program */
+ bool direct = false;
+
+ cpu = scx_bpf_select_cpu_dfl(p, prev_cpu, wake_flags, &direct);
+
+ if (direct)
+ scx_bpf_dispatch(p, SCX_DSQ_LOCAL, SCX_SLICE_DFL, 0);
+
+ return cpu;
+ }
+
+ /*
+ * Do a direct dispatch of a task to the global DSQ. This ops.enqueue()
+ * callback will only be invoked if we failed to find a core to dispatch
+ * to in ops.select_cpu() above.
+ *
+ * Note that this implementation has exactly the same behavior as the
+ * default ops.enqueue implementation, which just dispatches the task
+ * to SCX_DSQ_GLOBAL. The behavior of the scheduler would be exactly same
+ * if the implementation just didn't define the simple_enqueue struct_ops
+ * prog.
+ */
+ void BPF_STRUCT_OPS(simple_enqueue, struct task_struct *p, u64 enq_flags)
+ {
+ scx_bpf_dispatch(p, SCX_DSQ_GLOBAL, SCX_SLICE_DFL, enq_flags);
+ }
+
+ s32 BPF_STRUCT_OPS(simple_init)
+ {
+ /*
+ * All SCHED_OTHER, SCHED_IDLE, and SCHED_BATCH tasks should
+ * use sched_ext.
+ */
+ scx_bpf_switch_all();
+ return 0;
+ }
+
+ void BPF_STRUCT_OPS(simple_exit, struct scx_exit_info *ei)
+ {
+ exit_type = ei->type;
+ }
+
+ SEC(".struct_ops")
+ struct sched_ext_ops simple_ops = {
+ .select_cpu = (void *)simple_select_cpu,
+ .enqueue = (void *)simple_enqueue,
+ .init = (void *)simple_init,
+ .exit = (void *)simple_exit,
+ .name = "simple",
+ };
+
+Dispatch Queues
+---------------
+
+To match the impedance between the scheduler core and the BPF scheduler,
+sched_ext uses DSQs (dispatch queues) which can operate as both a FIFO and a
+priority queue. By default, there is one global FIFO (``SCX_DSQ_GLOBAL``),
+and one local dsq per CPU (``SCX_DSQ_LOCAL``). The BPF scheduler can manage
+an arbitrary number of dsq's using ``scx_bpf_create_dsq()`` and
+``scx_bpf_destroy_dsq()``.
+
+A CPU always executes a task from its local DSQ. A task is "dispatched" to a
+DSQ. A non-local DSQ is "consumed" to transfer a task to the consuming CPU's
+local DSQ.
+
+When a CPU is looking for the next task to run, if the local DSQ is not
+empty, the first task is picked. Otherwise, the CPU tries to consume the
+global DSQ. If that doesn't yield a runnable task either, ``ops.dispatch()``
+is invoked.
+
+Scheduling Cycle
+----------------
+
+The following briefly shows how a waking task is scheduled and executed.
+
+1. When a task is waking up, ``ops.select_cpu()`` is the first operation
+ invoked. This serves two purposes. First, CPU selection optimization
+ hint. Second, waking up the selected CPU if idle.
+
+ The CPU selected by ``ops.select_cpu()`` is an optimization hint and not
+ binding. The actual decision is made at the last step of scheduling.
+ However, there is a small performance gain if the CPU
+ ``ops.select_cpu()`` returns matches the CPU the task eventually runs on.
+
+ A side-effect of selecting a CPU is waking it up from idle. While a BPF
+ scheduler can wake up any cpu using the ``scx_bpf_kick_cpu()`` helper,
+ using ``ops.select_cpu()`` judiciously can be simpler and more efficient.
+
+ A task can be immediately dispatched to a DSQ from ``ops.select_cpu()`` by
+ calling ``scx_bpf_dispatch()``. If the task is dispatched to
+ ``SCX_DSQ_LOCAL`` from ``ops.select_cpu()``, it will be dispatched to the
+ local DSQ of whichever CPU is returned from ``ops.select_cpu()``.
+ Additionally, dispatching directly from ``ops.select_cpu()`` will cause the
+ ``ops.enqueue()`` callback to be skipped.
+
+ Note that the scheduler core will ignore an invalid CPU selection, for
+ example, if it's outside the allowed cpumask of the task.
+
+2. Once the target CPU is selected, ``ops.enqueue()`` is invoked (unless the
+ task was dispatched directly from ``ops.select_cpu()``). ``ops.enqueue()``
+ can make one of the following decisions:
+
+ * Immediately dispatch the task to either the global or local DSQ by
+ calling ``scx_bpf_dispatch()`` with ``SCX_DSQ_GLOBAL`` or
+ ``SCX_DSQ_LOCAL``, respectively.
+
+ * Immediately dispatch the task to a custom DSQ by calling
+ ``scx_bpf_dispatch()`` with a DSQ ID which is smaller than 2^63.
+
+ * Queue the task on the BPF side.
+
+3. When a CPU is ready to schedule, it first looks at its local DSQ. If
+ empty, it then looks at the global DSQ. If there still isn't a task to
+ run, ``ops.dispatch()`` is invoked which can use the following two
+ functions to populate the local DSQ.
+
+ * ``scx_bpf_dispatch()`` dispatches a task to a DSQ. Any target DSQ can
+ be used - ``SCX_DSQ_LOCAL``, ``SCX_DSQ_LOCAL_ON | cpu``,
+ ``SCX_DSQ_GLOBAL`` or a custom DSQ. While ``scx_bpf_dispatch()``
+ currently can't be called with BPF locks held, this is being worked on
+ and will be supported. ``scx_bpf_dispatch()`` schedules dispatching
+ rather than performing them immediately. There can be up to
+ ``ops.dispatch_max_batch`` pending tasks.
+
+ * ``scx_bpf_consume()`` tranfers a task from the specified non-local DSQ
+ to the dispatching DSQ. This function cannot be called with any BPF
+ locks held. ``scx_bpf_consume()`` flushes the pending dispatched tasks
+ before trying to consume the specified DSQ.
+
+4. After ``ops.dispatch()`` returns, if there are tasks in the local DSQ,
+ the CPU runs the first one. If empty, the following steps are taken:
+
+ * Try to consume the global DSQ. If successful, run the task.
+
+ * If ``ops.dispatch()`` has dispatched any tasks, retry #3.
+
+ * If the previous task is an SCX task and still runnable, keep executing
+ it (see ``SCX_OPS_ENQ_LAST``).
+
+ * Go idle.
+
+Note that the BPF scheduler can always choose to dispatch tasks immediately
+in ``ops.enqueue()`` as illustrated in the above simple example. If only the
+built-in DSQs are used, there is no need to implement ``ops.dispatch()`` as
+a task is never queued on the BPF scheduler and both the local and global
+DSQs are consumed automatically.
+
+``scx_bpf_dispatch()`` queues the task on the FIFO of the target DSQ. Use
+``scx_bpf_dispatch_vtime()`` for the priority queue. Internal DSQs such as
+``SCX_DSQ_LOCAL`` and ``SCX_DSQ_GLOBAL`` do not support priority-queue
+dispatching, and must be dispatched to with ``scx_bpf_dispatch()``. See the
+function documentation and usage in ``tools/sched_ext/scx_simple.bpf.c`` for
+more information.
+
+Where to Look
+=============
+
+* ``include/linux/sched/ext.h`` defines the core data structures, ops table
+ and constants.
+
+* ``kernel/sched/ext.c`` contains sched_ext core implementation and helpers.
+ The functions prefixed with ``scx_bpf_`` can be called from the BPF
+ scheduler.
+
+* ``tools/sched_ext/`` hosts example BPF scheduler implementations.
+
+ * ``scx_simple[.bpf].c``: Minimal global FIFO scheduler example using a
+ custom DSQ.
+
+ * ``scx_qmap[.bpf].c``: A multi-level FIFO scheduler supporting five
+ levels of priority implemented with ``BPF_MAP_TYPE_QUEUE``.
+
+ABI Instability
+===============
+
+The APIs provided by sched_ext to BPF schedulers programs have no stability
+guarantees. This includes the ops table callbacks and constants defined in
+``include/linux/sched/ext.h``, as well as the ``scx_bpf_`` kfuncs defined in
+``kernel/sched/ext.c``.
+
+While we will attempt to provide a relatively stable API surface when
+possible, they are subject to change without warning between kernel
+versions.
diff --git a/include/linux/sched/ext.h b/include/linux/sched/ext.h
index 9cee193dab19..fe9a67ffe6b1 100644
--- a/include/linux/sched/ext.h
+++ b/include/linux/sched/ext.h
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
/* SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 */
/*
+ * BPF extensible scheduler class: Documentation/scheduler/sched-ext.rst
+ *
* Copyright (c) 2022 Meta Platforms, Inc. and affiliates.
* Copyright (c) 2022 Tejun Heo <tj@xxxxxxxxxx>
* Copyright (c) 2022 David Vernet <dvernet@xxxxxxxx>
diff --git a/kernel/Kconfig.preempt b/kernel/Kconfig.preempt
index 7dde5e424ac3..f035c87d02f1 100644
--- a/kernel/Kconfig.preempt
+++ b/kernel/Kconfig.preempt
@@ -156,4 +156,5 @@ config SCHED_CLASS_EXT
similar to struct sched_class.
For more information:
+ Documentation/scheduler/sched-ext.rst
https://github.com/sched-ext/scx
diff --git a/kernel/sched/ext.c b/kernel/sched/ext.c
index f186c576e7d9..f814e84ceeb3 100644
--- a/kernel/sched/ext.c
+++ b/kernel/sched/ext.c
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
/* SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 */
/*
+ * BPF extensible scheduler class: Documentation/scheduler/sched-ext.rst
+ *
* Copyright (c) 2022 Meta Platforms, Inc. and affiliates.
* Copyright (c) 2022 Tejun Heo <tj@xxxxxxxxxx>
* Copyright (c) 2022 David Vernet <dvernet@xxxxxxxx>
diff --git a/kernel/sched/ext.h b/kernel/sched/ext.h
index 6555878c5da3..c41d742b5d62 100644
--- a/kernel/sched/ext.h
+++ b/kernel/sched/ext.h
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
/* SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 */
/*
+ * BPF extensible scheduler class: Documentation/scheduler/sched-ext.rst
+ *
* Copyright (c) 2022 Meta Platforms, Inc. and affiliates.
* Copyright (c) 2022 Tejun Heo <tj@xxxxxxxxxx>
* Copyright (c) 2022 David Vernet <dvernet@xxxxxxxx>
diff --git a/tools/sched_ext/README.md b/tools/sched_ext/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..8efe70cc4363
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tools/sched_ext/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,258 @@
+SCHED_EXT EXAMPLE SCHEDULERS
+============================
+
+# Introduction
+
+This directory contains a number of example sched_ext schedulers. These
+schedulers are meant to provide examples of different types of schedulers
+that can be built using sched_ext, and illustrate how various features of
+sched_ext can be used.
+
+Some of the examples are performant, production-ready schedulers. That is, for
+the correct workload and with the correct tuning, they may be deployed in a
+production environment with acceptable or possibly even improved performance.
+Others are just examples that in practice, would not provide acceptable
+performance (though they could be improved to get there).
+
+This README will describe these example schedulers, including describing the
+types of workloads or scenarios they're designed to accommodate, and whether or
+not they're production ready. For more details on any of these schedulers,
+please see the header comment in their .bpf.c file.
+
+
+# Compiling the examples
+
+There are a few toolchain dependencies for compiling the example schedulers.
+
+## Toolchain dependencies
+
+1. clang >= 16.0.0
+
+The schedulers are BPF programs, and therefore must be compiled with clang. gcc
+is actively working on adding a BPF backend compiler as well, but are still
+missing some features such as BTF type tags which are necessary for using
+kptrs.
+
+2. pahole >= 1.25
+
+You may need pahole in order to generate BTF from DWARF.
+
+3. rust >= 1.70.0
+
+Rust schedulers uses features present in the rust toolchain >= 1.70.0. You
+should be able to use the stable build from rustup, but if that doesn't
+work, try using the rustup nightly build.
+
+There are other requirements as well, such as make, but these are the main /
+non-trivial ones.
+
+## Compiling the kernel
+
+In order to run a sched_ext scheduler, you'll have to run a kernel compiled
+with the patches in this repository, and with a minimum set of necessary
+Kconfig options:
+
+```
+CONFIG_BPF=y
+CONFIG_SCHED_CLASS_EXT=y
+CONFIG_BPF_SYSCALL=y
+CONFIG_BPF_JIT=y
+CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO_BTF=y
+```
+
+It's also recommended that you also include the following Kconfig options:
+
+```
+CONFIG_BPF_JIT_ALWAYS_ON=y
+CONFIG_BPF_JIT_DEFAULT_ON=y
+CONFIG_PAHOLE_HAS_SPLIT_BTF=y
+CONFIG_PAHOLE_HAS_BTF_TAG=y
+```
+
+There is a `Kconfig` file in this directory whose contents you can append to
+your local `.config` file, as long as there are no conflicts with any existing
+options in the file.
+
+## Getting a vmlinux.h file
+
+You may notice that most of the example schedulers include a "vmlinux.h" file.
+This is a large, auto-generated header file that contains all of the types
+defined in some vmlinux binary that was compiled with
+[BTF](https://docs.kernel.org/bpf/btf.html) (i.e. with the BTF-related Kconfig
+options specified above).
+
+The header file is created using `bpftool`, by passing it a vmlinux binary
+compiled with BTF as follows:
+
+```bash
+$ bpftool btf dump file /path/to/vmlinux format c > vmlinux.h
+```
+
+`bpftool` analyzes all of the BTF encodings in the binary, and produces a
+header file that can be included by BPF programs to access those types. For
+example, using vmlinux.h allows a scheduler to access fields defined directly
+in vmlinux as follows:
+
+```c
+#include "vmlinux.h"
+// vmlinux.h is also implicitly included by scx_common.bpf.h.
+#include "scx_common.bpf.h"
+
+/*
+ * vmlinux.h provides definitions for struct task_struct and
+ * struct scx_enable_args.
+ */
+void BPF_STRUCT_OPS(example_enable, struct task_struct *p,
+ struct scx_enable_args *args)
+{
+ bpf_printk("Task %s enabled in example scheduler", p->comm);
+}
+
+// vmlinux.h provides the definition for struct sched_ext_ops.
+SEC(".struct_ops.link")
+struct sched_ext_ops example_ops {
+ .enable = (void *)example_enable,
+ .name = "example",
+}
+```
+
+The scheduler build system will generate this vmlinux.h file as part of the
+scheduler build pipeline. It looks for a vmlinux file in the following
+dependency order:
+
+1. If the O= environment variable is defined, at `$O/vmlinux`
+2. If the KBUILD_OUTPUT= environment variable is defined, at
+ `$KBUILD_OUTPUT/vmlinux`
+3. At `../../vmlinux` (i.e. at the root of the kernel tree where you're
+ compiling the schedulers)
+3. `/sys/kernel/btf/vmlinux`
+4. `/boot/vmlinux-$(uname -r)`
+
+In other words, if you have compiled a kernel in your local repo, its vmlinux
+file will be used to generate vmlinux.h. Otherwise, it will be the vmlinux of
+the kernel you're currently running on. This means that if you're running on a
+kernel with sched_ext support, you may not need to compile a local kernel at
+all.
+
+### Aside on CO-RE
+
+One of the cooler features of BPF is that it supports
+[CO-RE](https://nakryiko.com/posts/bpf-core-reference-guide/) (Compile Once Run
+Everywhere). This feature allows you to reference fields inside of structs with
+types defined internal to the kernel, and not have to recompile if you load the
+BPF program on a different kernel with the field at a different offset. In our
+example above, we print out a task name with `p->comm`. CO-RE would perform
+relocations for that access when the program is loaded to ensure that it's
+referencing the correct offset for the currently running kernel.
+
+## Compiling the schedulers
+
+Once you have your toolchain setup, and a vmlinux that can be used to generate
+a full vmlinux.h file, you can compile the schedulers using `make`:
+
+```bash
+$ make -j($nproc)
+```
+
+# Example schedulers
+
+This directory contains the following example schedulers. These schedulers are
+for testing and demonstrating different aspects of sched_ext. While some may be
+useful in limited scenarios, they are not intended to be practical.
+
+For more scheduler implementations, tools and documentation, visit
+https://github.com/sched-ext/scx.
+
+## scx_simple
+
+A simple scheduler that provides an example of a minimal sched_ext scheduler.
+scx_simple can be run in either global weighted vtime mode, or FIFO mode.
+
+Though very simple, in limited scenarios, this scheduler can perform reasonably
+well on single-socket systems with a unified L3 cache.
+
+## scx_qmap
+
+Another simple, yet slightly more complex scheduler that provides an example of
+a basic weighted FIFO queuing policy. It also provides examples of some common
+useful BPF features, such as sleepable per-task storage allocation in the
+`ops.prep_enable()` callback, and using the `BPF_MAP_TYPE_QUEUE` map type to
+enqueue tasks. It also illustrates how core-sched support could be implemented.
+
+## scx_central
+
+A "central" scheduler where scheduling decisions are made from a single CPU.
+This scheduler illustrates how scheduling decisions can be dispatched from a
+single CPU, allowing other cores to run with infinite slices, without timer
+ticks, and without having to incur the overhead of making scheduling decisions.
+
+The approach demonstrated by this scheduler may be useful for any workload that
+benefits from minimizing scheduling overhead and timer ticks. An example of
+where this could be particularly useful is running VMs, where running with
+infinite slices and no timer ticks allows the VM to avoid unnecessary expensive
+vmexits.
+
+
+# Troubleshooting
+
+There are a number of common issues that you may run into when building the
+schedulers. We'll go over some of the common ones here.
+
+## Build Failures
+
+### Old version of clang
+
+```
+error: static assertion failed due to requirement 'SCX_DSQ_FLAG_BUILTIN': bpftool generated vmlinux.h is missing high bits for 64bit enums, upgrade clang and pahole
+ _Static_assert(SCX_DSQ_FLAG_BUILTIN,
+ ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+1 error generated.
+```
+
+This means you built the kernel or the schedulers with an older version of
+clang than what's supported (i.e. older than 16.0.0). To remediate this:
+
+1. `which clang` to make sure you're using a sufficiently new version of clang.
+
+2. `make fullclean` in the root path of the repository, and rebuild the kernel
+ and schedulers.
+
+3. Rebuild the kernel, and then your example schedulers.
+
+The schedulers are also cleaned if you invoke `make mrproper` in the root
+directory of the tree.
+
+### Stale kernel build / incomplete vmlinux.h file
+
+As described above, you'll need a `vmlinux.h` file that was generated from a
+vmlinux built with BTF, and with sched_ext support enabled. If you don't,
+you'll see errors such as the following which indicate that a type being
+referenced in a scheduler is unknown:
+
+```
+/path/to/sched_ext/tools/sched_ext/user_exit_info.h:25:23: note: forward declaration of 'struct scx_exit_info'
+
+const struct scx_exit_info *ei)
+
+^
+```
+
+In order to resolve this, please follow the steps above in
+[Getting a vmlinux.h file](#getting-a-vmlinuxh-file) in order to ensure your
+schedulers are using a vmlinux.h file that includes the requisite types.
+
+## Misc
+
+### llvm: [OFF]
+
+You may see the following output when building the schedulers:
+
+```
+Auto-detecting system features:
+... clang-bpf-co-re: [ on ]
+... llvm: [ OFF ]
+... libcap: [ on ]
+... libbfd: [ on ]
+```
+
+Seeing `llvm: [ OFF ]` here is not an issue. You can safely ignore.
--
2.45.2
