[PATCH] sched/doc: Update documentation for base_slice_ns and CONFIG_HZ relation

From: Mukesh Kumar Chaurasiya
Date: Wed Mar 20 2024 - 13:38:48 EST


The tunable base_slice_ns is dependent on CONFIG_HZ (i.e. TICK_NSEC)
for any significant performance improvement. The reason being the
scheduler tick is not frequent enough to force preemption when
base_slice expires in case of

base_slice_ns < TICK_NSEC

The below data is of stress-ng
Number of CPU: 1
Stressor threads: 4
Time: 30sec

On CONFIG_HZ=1000

| base_slice | avg-run (msec) | context-switches |
| ---------- | -------------- | ---------------- |
| 3ms | 2.914 | 10342 |
| 6ms | 4.857 | 6196 |
| 9ms | 6.754 | 4482 |
| 12ms | 7.872 | 3802 |
| 22ms | 11.294 | 2710 |
| 32ms | 13.425 | 2284 |

On CONFIG_HZ=100

| base_slice | avg-run (msec) | context-switches |
| ---------- | -------------- | ---------------- |
| 3ms | 9.144 | 3337 |
| 6ms | 9.113 | 3301 |
| 9ms | 8.991 | 3315 |
| 12ms | 12.935 | 2328 |
| 22ms | 16.031 | 1915 |
| 32ms | 18.608 | 1622 |

base_slice: the value of base_slice in ms
avg-run (msec): average time of the stressor threads got on cpu before
it got preempted
context-switches: number of context switches for the stress-ng process

Signed-off-by: Mukesh Kumar Chaurasiya <mchauras@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
Documentation/scheduler/sched-design-CFS.rst | 3 +++
1 file changed, 3 insertions(+)

diff --git a/Documentation/scheduler/sched-design-CFS.rst b/Documentation/scheduler/sched-design-CFS.rst
index 6cffffe26500..82985d675554 100644
--- a/Documentation/scheduler/sched-design-CFS.rst
+++ b/Documentation/scheduler/sched-design-CFS.rst
@@ -100,6 +100,9 @@ which can be used to tune the scheduler from "desktop" (i.e., low latencies) to
"server" (i.e., good batching) workloads. It defaults to a setting suitable
for desktop workloads. SCHED_BATCH is handled by the CFS scheduler module too.

+In case the CONFIG_HZ leads to base_slice_ns < TICK_NSEC. The settings of
+base_slice_ns will have little to no impact on the workloads.
+
Due to its design, the CFS scheduler is not prone to any of the "attacks" that
exist today against the heuristics of the stock scheduler: fiftyp.c, thud.c,
chew.c, ring-test.c, massive_intr.c all work fine and do not impact
--
2.44.0