Re: [PATCH v2 06/33] Documentation, x86: Documentation for Intel resource allocation user interface

[Fenghua Yu]

On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 03:01:20PM -0700, Shaohua Li wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 02:57:00AM -0700, Fenghua Yu wrote:
> > From: Fenghua Yu <fenghua.yu@xxxxxxxxx>
> > 
> > The documentation describes user interface of how to allocate resource
> > in Intel RDT.
> > 
> > Please note that the documentation covers generic user interface. Current
> > patch set code only implemente CAT L3. CAT L2 code will be sent later.
> > 
> > Signed-off-by: Fenghua Yu <fenghua.yu@xxxxxxxxx>
> > Reviewed-by: Tony Luck <tony.luck@xxxxxxxxx>
> > ---
> >  Documentation/x86/intel_rdt_ui.txt | 164 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> >  1 file changed, 164 insertions(+)
> >  create mode 100644 Documentation/x86/intel_rdt_ui.txt
> > 
> > diff --git a/Documentation/x86/intel_rdt_ui.txt b/Documentation/x86/intel_rdt_ui.txt
> > new file mode 100644
> > index 0000000..27de386
> > --- /dev/null
> > +++ b/Documentation/x86/intel_rdt_ui.txt
> > @@ -0,0 +1,164 @@
> > +User Interface for Resource Allocation in Intel Resource Director Technology
> > +
> > +Copyright (C) 2016 Intel Corporation
> > +
> > +Fenghua Yu <fenghua.yu@xxxxxxxxx>
> > +Tony Luck <tony.luck@xxxxxxxxx>
> > +
> > +This feature is enabled by the CONFIG_INTEL_RDT Kconfig and the
> > +X86 /proc/cpuinfo flag bits "rdt", "cat_l3" and "cdp_l3".
> > +
> > +To use the feature mount the file system:
> > +
> > + # mount -t resctrl resctrl [-o cdp,verbose] /sys/fs/resctrl
> > +
> > +mount options are:
> > +
> > +"cdp": Enable code/data prioritization in L3 cache allocations.
> > +
> > +"verbose": Output more info in the "info" file under info directory
> > +	and in dmesg. This is mainly for debug.
> > +
> > +
> > +Resource groups
> > +---------------
> > +Resource groups are represented as directories in the resctrl file
> > +system. The default group is the root directory. Other groups may be
> > +created as desired by the system administrator using the "mkdir(1)"
> > +command, and removed using "rmdir(1)".
> > +
> > +There are three files associated with each group:
> > +
> > +"tasks": A list of tasks that belongs to this group. Tasks can be
> > +	added to a group by writing the task ID to the "tasks" file
> > +	(which will automatically remove them from the previous
> > +	group to which they belonged). New tasks created by fork(2)
> > +	and clone(2) are added to the same group as their parent.
> > +	If a pid is not in any sub partition, it is in root partition
> > +	(i.e. default partition).
> Hi Fenghua,
> 
> Will you add a 'procs' interface to allow move a process into a group? Using
> the 'tasks' interface to move process is inconvenient and has race conditions
> (eg, some new threads could be escaped).

We don't plan to add a 'procs' interface for rdtgroup. We only use resctrl
interface to allocate resources.

Why the "tasks" is inconvenient? If sysadmin wants to allocte a portion of L3
for a pid, the operation in resctl is to write the pid to a "tasks". While
in 'procs', the operation is to write a partition to a pid. If considering
convenience, they are same, right?

A thread uses either default partition (in root dir) or a sub partition (in
sub-directory). Sysadmin can control that. Kernel handles race condition.
Any issue with that?

Thanks.

-Fenghua
The same