On Wed, Mar 22, 2023 at 11:13:02AM +0100, Michal Hocko wrote: > On Mon 20-03-23 16:07:29, Marcelo Tosatti wrote: > > On Mon, Mar 20, 2023 at 07:25:55PM +0100, Michal Hocko wrote: > > > On Mon 20-03-23 15:03:32, Marcelo Tosatti wrote: > > > > This patch series addresses the following two problems: > > > > > > > > 1. A customer provided evidence indicating that a process > > > > was stalled in direct reclaim: > > > > > > > This is addressed by the trivial patch 1. > > > > > > [...] > > > > 2. With a task that busy loops on a given CPU, > > > > the kworker interruption to execute vmstat_update > > > > is undesired and may exceed latency thresholds > > > > for certain applications. > > > > > > Yes it can but why does that matter? > > > > It matters for the application that is executing and expects > > not to be interrupted. > > Those workloads shouldn't enter the kernel in the first place, no? It depends on the latency requirements and individual system calls. > Otherwise the in kernel execution with all the direct or indirect > dependencies (e.g. via locks) can throw any latency expectations off the > window. > > > > > By having vmstat_shepherd flush the per-CPU counters to the > > > > global counters from remote CPUs. > > > > > > > > This is done using cmpxchg to manipulate the counters, > > > > both CPU locally (via the account functions), > > > > and remotely (via cpu_vm_stats_fold). > > > > > > > > Thanks to Aaron Tomlin for diagnosing issue 1 and writing > > > > the initial patch series. > > > > > > > > > > > > Performance details for the kworker interruption: > > > > > > > > oslat 1094.456862: sys_mlock(start: 7f7ed0000b60, len: 1000) > > > > oslat 1094.456971: workqueue_queue_work: ... function=vmstat_update ... > > > > oslat 1094.456974: sched_switch: prev_comm=oslat ... ==> next_comm=kworker/5:1 ... > > > > kworker 1094.456978: sched_switch: prev_comm=kworker/5:1 ==> next_comm=oslat ... > > > > > > > > The example above shows an additional 7us for the > > > > > > > > oslat -> kworker -> oslat > > > > > > > > switches. In the case of a virtualized CPU, and the vmstat_update > > > > interruption in the host (of a qemu-kvm vcpu), the latency penalty > > > > observed in the guest is higher than 50us, violating the acceptable > > > > latency threshold for certain applications. > > > > > > I do not think we have ever promissed any specific latency guarantees > > > for vmstat. These are statistics have been mostly used for debugging > > > purposes AFAIK. I am not aware of any specific user space use case that > > > would be latency sensitive. Your changelog doesn't go into details there > > > either. > > > > There is a class of workloads for which response time can be > > of interest. MAC scheduler is an example: > > > > https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10090368 > > Yes, I am not disputing low latency workloads in general. I am just > saying that you haven't really established a very sound justification > here. The -v7 cover letter was updated with additional details, as you requested (perhaps you missed it): "Performance details for the kworker interruption: oslat 1094.456862: sys_mlock(start: 7f7ed0000b60, len: 1000) oslat 1094.456971: workqueue_queue_work: ... function=vmstat_update ... oslat 1094.456974: sched_switch: prev_comm=oslat ... ==> next_comm=kworker/5:1 ... kworker 1094.456978: sched_switch: prev_comm=kworker/5:1 ==> next_comm=oslat ... The example above shows an additional 7us for the oslat -> kworker -> oslat switches. In the case of a virtualized CPU, and the vmstat_update interruption in the host (of a qemu-kvm vcpu), the latency penalty observed in the guest is higher than 50us, violating the acceptable latency threshold for certain applications." > Of course there are workloads which do not want to conflict with > any in kernel house keeping. Those have to be configured and implemented > very carefully though. Vmstat as such should not collide with those > workloads as long as they do not interact with the kernel in a way > counters are updated. Is this hard or impossible to avoid? The practical problem we have been seeing is -RT app initialization. For example: 1) mlock(); 2) enter loop without system calls > I can imagine that those workloads have an start up sequence where the > kernel is involved and counters updated so that deferred flushing could > interfere with the later and latency sensitive phase. Is that a real > problem in practice? Please tell us much more why we need to make the > vmstat code more complex. Yes, it is. I have attached traces and performance numbers above.
