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Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/sched-domains.txt')
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diff --git a/Documentation/sched-domains.txt b/Documentation/sched-domains.txt new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..a9e990ab980 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/sched-domains.txt @@ -0,0 +1,70 @@ +Each CPU has a "base" scheduling domain (struct sched_domain). These are +accessed via cpu_sched_domain(i) and this_sched_domain() macros. The domain +hierarchy is built from these base domains via the ->parent pointer. ->parent +MUST be NULL terminated, and domain structures should be per-CPU as they +are locklessly updated. + +Each scheduling domain spans a number of CPUs (stored in the ->span field). +A domain's span MUST be a superset of it child's span (this restriction could +be relaxed if the need arises), and a base domain for CPU i MUST span at least +i. The top domain for each CPU will generally span all CPUs in the system +although strictly it doesn't have to, but this could lead to a case where some +CPUs will never be given tasks to run unless the CPUs allowed mask is +explicitly set. A sched domain's span means "balance process load among these +CPUs". + +Each scheduling domain must have one or more CPU groups (struct sched_group) +which are organised as a circular one way linked list from the ->groups +pointer. The union of cpumasks of these groups MUST be the same as the +domain's span. The intersection of cpumasks from any two of these groups +MUST be the empty set. The group pointed to by the ->groups pointer MUST +contain the CPU to which the domain belongs. Groups may be shared among +CPUs as they contain read only data after they have been set up. + +Balancing within a sched domain occurs between groups. That is, each group +is treated as one entity. The load of a group is defined as the sum of the +load of each of its member CPUs, and only when the load of a group becomes +out of balance are tasks moved between groups. + +In kernel/sched.c, rebalance_tick is run periodically on each CPU. This +function takes its CPU's base sched domain and checks to see if has reached +its rebalance interval. If so, then it will run load_balance on that domain. +rebalance_tick then checks the parent sched_domain (if it exists), and the +parent of the parent and so forth. + +*** Implementing sched domains *** +The "base" domain will "span" the first level of the hierarchy. In the case +of SMT, you'll span all siblings of the physical CPU, with each group being +a single virtual CPU. + +In SMP, the parent of the base domain will span all physical CPUs in the +node. Each group being a single physical CPU. Then with NUMA, the parent +of the SMP domain will span the entire machine, with each group having the +cpumask of a node. Or, you could do multi-level NUMA or Opteron, for example, +might have just one domain covering its one NUMA level. + +The implementor should read comments in include/linux/sched.h: +struct sched_domain fields, SD_FLAG_*, SD_*_INIT to get an idea of +the specifics and what to tune. + +For SMT, the architecture must define CONFIG_SCHED_SMT and provide a +cpumask_t cpu_sibling_map[NR_CPUS], where cpu_sibling_map[i] is the mask of +all "i"'s siblings as well as "i" itself. + +Architectures may retain the regular override the default SD_*_INIT flags +while using the generic domain builder in kernel/sched.c if they wish to +retain the traditional SMT->SMP->NUMA topology (or some subset of that). This +can be done by #define'ing ARCH_HASH_SCHED_TUNE. + +Alternatively, the architecture may completely override the generic domain +builder by #define'ing ARCH_HASH_SCHED_DOMAIN, and exporting your +arch_init_sched_domains function. This function will attach domains to all +CPUs using cpu_attach_domain. + +Implementors should change the line +#undef SCHED_DOMAIN_DEBUG +to +#define SCHED_DOMAIN_DEBUG +in kernel/sched.c as this enables an error checking parse of the sched domains +which should catch most possible errors (described above). It also prints out +the domain structure in a visual format. |