There are two problems with balance_tasks() and how it used:
1. The variables best_prio and best_prio_seen (inherited from the old
move_tasks()) were only required to handle problems caused by the
active/expired arrays, the order in which they were processed and the
possibility that the task with the highest priority could be on either.
These issues are no longer present and the extra overhead associated
with their use is unnecessary (and possibly wrong).
2. In the absence of CONFIG_FAIR_GROUP_SCHED being set, the same
this_best_prio variable needs to be used by all scheduling classes or
there is a risk of moving too much load. E.g. if the highest priority
task on this at the beginning is a fairly low priority task and the rt
class migrates a task (during its turn) then that moved task becomes the
new highest priority task on this_rq but when the sched_fair class
initializes its copy of this_best_prio it will get the priority of the
original highest priority task as, due to the run queue locks being
held, the reschedule triggered by pull_task() will not have taken place.
This could result in inappropriate overriding of skip_for_load and
excessive load being moved.
The attached patch addresses these problems by deleting all reference to
best_prio and best_prio_seen and making this_best_prio a reference
parameter to the various functions involved.
load_balance_fair() has also been modified so that this_best_prio is
only reset (in the loop) if CONFIG_FAIR_GROUP_SCHED is set. This should
preserve the effect of helping spread groups' higher priority tasks
around the available CPUs while improving system performance when
CONFIG_FAIR_GROUP_SCHED isn't set.
Signed-off-by: Peter Williams <pwil3058@bigpond.net.au>
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
The move_tasks() function is currently multiplexed with two distinct
capabilities:
1. attempt to move a specified amount of weighted load from one run
queue to another; and
2. attempt to move a specified number of tasks from one run queue to
another.
The first of these capabilities is used in two places, load_balance()
and load_balance_idle(), and in both of these cases the return value of
move_tasks() is used purely to decide if tasks/load were moved and no
notice of the actual number of tasks moved is taken.
The second capability is used in exactly one place,
active_load_balance(), to attempt to move exactly one task and, as
before, the return value is only used as an indicator of success or failure.
This multiplexing of sched_task() was introduced, by me, as part of the
smpnice patches and was motivated by the fact that the alternative, one
function to move specified load and one to move a single task, would
have led to two functions of roughly the same complexity as the old
move_tasks() (or the new balance_tasks()). However, the new modular
design of the new CFS scheduler allows a simpler solution to be adopted
and this patch addresses that solution by:
1. adding a new function, move_one_task(), to be used by
active_load_balance(); and
2. making move_tasks() a single purpose function that tries to move a
specified weighted load and returns 1 for success and 0 for failure.
One of the consequences of these changes is that neither move_one_task()
or the new move_tasks() care how many tasks sched_class.load_balance()
moves and this enables its interface to be simplified by returning the
amount of load moved as its result and removing the load_moved pointer
from the argument list. This helps simplify the new move_tasks() and
slightly reduces the amount of work done in each of
sched_class.load_balance()'s implementations.
Further simplification, e.g. changes to balance_tasks(), are possible
but (slightly) complicated by the special needs of load_balance_fair()
so I've left them to a later patch (if this one gets accepted).
NB Since move_tasks() gets called with two run queue locks held even
small reductions in overhead are worthwhile.
[ mingo@elte.hu ]
this change also reduces code size nicely:
text data bss dec hex filename
39216 3618 24 42858 a76a sched.o.before
39173 3618 24 42815 a73f sched.o.after
Signed-off-by: Peter Williams <pwil3058@bigpond.net.au>
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
move the rest of the debugging/instrumentation code to under
CONFIG_SCHEDSTATS too. This reduces code size and speeds code up:
text data bss dec hex filename
33044 4122 28 37194 914a sched.o.before
32708 4122 28 36858 8ffa sched.o.after
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
add kernel/sched_rt.c: SCHED_FIFO/SCHED_RR support. The behavior
and semantics of SCHED_FIFO/SCHED_RR tasks is unchanged.
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Peter Williams