Re: [PATCH 1/2] sched/uclamp: Add a new sysctl to control RT default boost value

[Mel Gorman]

On Wed, Jun 03, 2020 at 01:41:13PM +0100, Qais Yousef wrote:
> > > netperf-udp
> > >                                 ./5.7.0-rc7            ./5.7.0-rc7            ./5.7.0-rc7
> > >                               without-clamp             with-clamp      with-clamp-tskgrp
> > > 
> > > Hmean     send-64         153.62 (   0.00%)      151.80 *  -1.19%*      155.60 *   1.28%*
> > > Hmean     send-128        306.77 (   0.00%)      306.27 *  -0.16%*      309.39 *   0.85%*
> > > Hmean     send-256        608.54 (   0.00%)      604.28 *  -0.70%*      613.42 *   0.80%*
> > > Hmean     send-1024      2395.80 (   0.00%)     2365.67 *  -1.26%*     2409.50 *   0.57%*
> > > Hmean     send-2048      4608.70 (   0.00%)     4544.02 *  -1.40%*     4665.96 *   1.24%*
> > > Hmean     send-3312      7223.97 (   0.00%)     7158.88 *  -0.90%*     7331.23 *   1.48%*
> > > Hmean     send-4096      8729.53 (   0.00%)     8598.78 *  -1.50%*     8860.47 *   1.50%*
> > > Hmean     send-8192     14961.77 (   0.00%)    14418.92 *  -3.63%*    14908.36 *  -0.36%*
> > > Hmean     send-16384    25799.50 (   0.00%)    25025.64 *  -3.00%*    25831.20 *   0.12%*
> > > Hmean     recv-64         153.62 (   0.00%)      151.80 *  -1.19%*      155.60 *   1.28%*
> > > Hmean     recv-128        306.77 (   0.00%)      306.27 *  -0.16%*      309.39 *   0.85%*
> > > Hmean     recv-256        608.54 (   0.00%)      604.28 *  -0.70%*      613.42 *   0.80%*
> > > Hmean     recv-1024      2395.80 (   0.00%)     2365.67 *  -1.26%*     2409.50 *   0.57%*
> > > Hmean     recv-2048      4608.70 (   0.00%)     4544.02 *  -1.40%*     4665.95 *   1.24%*
> > > Hmean     recv-3312      7223.97 (   0.00%)     7158.88 *  -0.90%*     7331.23 *   1.48%*
> > > Hmean     recv-4096      8729.53 (   0.00%)     8598.78 *  -1.50%*     8860.47 *   1.50%*
> > > Hmean     recv-8192     14961.61 (   0.00%)    14418.88 *  -3.63%*    14908.30 *  -0.36%*
> > > Hmean     recv-16384    25799.39 (   0.00%)    25025.49 *  -3.00%*    25831.00 *   0.12%*
> > > 
> > > netperf-tcp
> > >  
> > > Hmean     64              818.65 (   0.00%)      812.98 *  -0.69%*      826.17 *   0.92%*
> > > Hmean     128            1569.55 (   0.00%)     1555.79 *  -0.88%*     1586.94 *   1.11%*
> > > Hmean     256            2952.86 (   0.00%)     2915.07 *  -1.28%*     2968.15 *   0.52%*
> > > Hmean     1024          10425.91 (   0.00%)    10296.68 *  -1.24%*    10418.38 *  -0.07%*
> > > Hmean     2048          17454.51 (   0.00%)    17369.57 *  -0.49%*    17419.24 *  -0.20%*
> > > Hmean     3312          22509.95 (   0.00%)    22229.69 *  -1.25%*    22373.32 *  -0.61%*
> > > Hmean     4096          25033.23 (   0.00%)    24859.59 *  -0.69%*    24912.50 *  -0.48%*
> > > Hmean     8192          32080.51 (   0.00%)    31744.51 *  -1.05%*    31800.45 *  -0.87%*
> > > Hmean     16384         36531.86 (   0.00%)    37064.68 *   1.46%*    37397.71 *   2.37%*
> > > 
> > > The diffs are smaller than on openSUSE Leap 15.1 and some of the
> > > uclamp taskgroup results are better?
> > > 
> > 
> > I don't see the stddev and coeff but these look close to borderline.
> > Sure, they are marked with a * so it passed a significant test but it's
> > still a very marginal difference for netperf. It's possible that the
> > systemd configurations differ in some way that is significant for uclamp
> > but I don't know what that is.
> 
> Hmm so what you're saying is that Dietmar didn't reproduce the same problem
> you're observing? I was hoping to use that to dig more into it.
> 

Not as such, I'm saying that for whatever reason the problem is not as
visible with Dietmar's setup. It may be machine-specific or distribution
specific. There are alternative suggestions for testing just the fast
paths with a pipe test that may be clearer.

> > 
> > > With this test setup we now can play with the uclamp code in
> > > enqueue_task() and dequeue_task().
> > > 
> > 
> > That is still true. An annotated perf profile should tell you if the
> > uclamp code is being heavily used or if it's bailing early but it's also
> > possible that uclamp overhead is not a big deal on your particular
> > machine.
> > 
> > The possibility that either the distribution, the machine or both are
> > critical for detecting a problem with uclamp may explain why any overhead
> > was missed. Even if it is marginal, it still makes sense to minimise the
> > amount of uclamp code that is executed if no limit is specified for tasks.
> 
> So one speculation I have that might be causing the problem is that the
> accesses of struct uclamp_rq are causing bad cache behavior in your case. Your
> mmtest description of the netperf says that it is sensitive to cacheline
> bouncing.
> 
> Looking at struct rq, the uclamp_rq is spanning 2 cachelines
> 
>  29954         /* --- cacheline 1 boundary (64 bytes) --- */
>  29955         struct uclamp_rq           uclamp[2];            /*    64    96 */
>  29956         /* --- cacheline 2 boundary (128 bytes) was 32 bytes ago --- */
>  29957         unsigned int               uclamp_flags;         /*   160     4 */
>  29958
>  29959         /* XXX 28 bytes hole, try to pack */
>  29960
> 
> Reducing sturct uclamp_bucket to use unsigned int instead of unsigned long
> helps putting it all in a single cacheline
> 

I tried this and while it did not make much of a difference to the
headline metric, the workload was less variable so if it's proven that
cache line bouncing is reduced (I didn't measure it), it may have merit
on its own even if it does not fully address the problem.

-- 
Mel Gorman
SUSE Labs