CPU affinity with ULE scheduler

John Baldwin jhb at freebsd.org
Mon Nov 17 13:13:50 PST 2008


On Monday 17 November 2008 06:11:00 am Archimedes Gaviola wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 14, 2008 at 12:28 AM, John Baldwin <jhb at freebsd.org> wrote:
> > On Thursday 13 November 2008 06:55:01 am Archimedes Gaviola wrote:
> >> On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 1:16 AM, John Baldwin <jhb at freebsd.org> wrote:
> >> > On Monday 10 November 2008 11:32:55 pm Archimedes Gaviola wrote:
> >> >> On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 6:33 AM, John Baldwin <jhb at freebsd.org> wrote:
> >> >> > On Monday 10 November 2008 03:33:23 am Archimedes Gaviola wrote:
> >> >> >> To Whom It May Concerned:
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> Can someone explain or share about ULE scheduler (latest version 2 
if
> >> >> >> I'm not mistaken) dealing with CPU affinity? Is there any existing
> >> >> >> benchmarks on this with FreeBSD? Because I am currently using 4BSD
> >> >> >> scheduler and as what I have observed especially on processing high
> >> >> >> network load traffic on multiple CPU cores, only one CPU were being
> >> >> >> stressed with network interrupt while the rests are mostly in idle
> >> >> >> state. This is an AMD-64 (4x) dual-core IBM system with GigE 
Broadcom
> >> >> >> network interface cards (bce0 and bce1). Below is the snapshot of 
the
> >> >> >> case.
> >> >> >
> >> >> > Interrupts are routed to a single CPU.  Since bce0 and bce1 are both 
on
> >> > the
> >> >> > same interrupt (irq 23), the CPU that interrupt is routed to is 
going
> > to
> >> > end
> >> >> > up handling all the interrupts for bce0 and bce1.  This not 
something
> > ULE
> >> > or
> >> >> > 4BSD have any control over.
> >> >> >
> >> >> > --
> >> >> > John Baldwin
> >> >> >
> >> >>
> >> >> Hi John,
> >> >>
> >> >> I'm sorry for the wrong snapshot. Here's the right one with my 
concern.
> >> >>
> >> >>   PID USERNAME  THR PRI NICE   SIZE    RES STATE  C   TIME   WCPU 
COMMAND
> >> >>    17 root        1 171   52     0K    16K CPU0   0  54:28 95.17% 
idle:
> > cpu0
> >> >>    15 root        1 171   52     0K    16K CPU2   2  55:55 93.65% 
idle:
> > cpu2
> >> >>    14 root        1 171   52     0K    16K CPU3   3  58:53 93.55% 
idle:
> > cpu3
> >> >>    13 root        1 171   52     0K    16K RUN    4  59:14 82.47% 
idle:
> > cpu4
> >> >>    12 root        1 171   52     0K    16K RUN    5  55:42 82.23% 
idle:
> > cpu5
> >> >>    16 root        1 171   52     0K    16K CPU1   1  58:13 77.78% 
idle:
> > cpu1
> >> >>    11 root        1 171   52     0K    16K CPU6   6  54:08 76.17% 
idle:
> > cpu6
> >> >>    36 root        1 -68 -187     0K    16K WAIT   7   8:50 65.53%
> >> >> irq23: bce0 bce1
> >> >>    10 root        1 171   52     0K    16K CPU7   7  48:19 29.79% 
idle:
> > cpu7
> >> >>    43 root        1 171   52     0K    16K pgzero 2   0:35  1.51%
> > pagezero
> >> >>  1372 root       10  20    0 16716K  5764K kserel 6  58:42  0.00% kmd
> >> >>  4488 root        1  96    0 30676K  4236K select 2   1:51  0.00% sshd
> >> >>    18 root        1 -32 -151     0K    16K WAIT   0   1:14  0.00% 
swi4:
> >> > clock s
> >> >>    20 root        1 -44 -163     0K    16K WAIT   0   0:30  0.00% 
swi1:
> > net
> >> >>   218 root        1  96    0  3852K  1376K select 0   0:23  0.00% 
syslogd
> >> >>  2171 root        1  96    0 30676K  4224K select 6   0:19  0.00% sshd
> >> >>
> >> >> Actually I was doing a network performance testing on this system with
> >> >> FreeBSD-6.2 RELEASE using its default scheduler 4BSD and then I used a
> >> >> tool to generate big amount of traffic around 600Mbps-700Mbps
> >> >> traversing the FreeBSD system in bi-direction, meaning both network
> >> >> interfaces are receiving traffic. What happened was, the CPU (cpu7)
> >> >> that handles the (irq 23) on both interfaces consumed big amount of
> >> >> CPU utilization around 65.53% in which it affects other running
> >> >> applications and services like sshd and httpd. It's no longer
> >> >> accessible when traffic is bombarded. With the current situation of my
> >> >> FreeBSD system with only one CPU being stressed, I was thinking of
> >> >> moving to FreeBSD-7.0 RELEASE with the ULE scheduler because I thought
> >> >> my concern has something to do with the distributions of load on
> >> >> multiple CPU cores handled by the scheduler especially at the network
> >> >> level, processing network load. So, if it is more of interrupt
> >> >> handling and not on the scheduler, is there a way we can optimize it?
> >> >> Because if it still routed only to one CPU then for me it's still
> >> >> inefficient. Who handles interrupt scheduling for bounding CPU in
> >> >> order to prevent shared IRQ? Is there any improvements with
> >> >> FreeBSD-7.0 with regards to interrupt handling?
> >> >
> >> > It depends.  In all likelihood, the interrupts from bce0 and bce1 are 
both
> >> > hardwired to the same interrupt pin and so they will always share the 
same
> >> > ithread when using the legacy INTx interrupts.  However, bce(4) parts 
do
> >> > support MSI, and if you try a newer OS snap (6.3 or later) these 
devices
> >> > should use MSI in which case each NIC would be assigned to a separate 
CPU.
> > I
> >> > would suggest trying 7.0 or a 7.1 release candidate and see if it does
> >> > better.
> >> >
> >> > --
> >> > John Baldwin
> >> >
> >>
> >> Hi John,
> >>
> >> I try 7.0 release and each network interface were already allocated
> >> separately on different CPU. Here, MSI is already working.
> >>
> >>   PID USERNAME  THR PRI NICE   SIZE    RES STATE  C   TIME   WCPU COMMAND
> >>    12 root        1 171 ki31     0K    16K CPU6   6 123:55 100.00% idle:
> > cpu6
> >>    15 root        1 171 ki31     0K    16K CPU3   3 123:54 100.00% idle:
> > cpu3
> >>    14 root        1 171 ki31     0K    16K CPU4   4 123:26 100.00% idle:
> > cpu4
> >>    16 root        1 171 ki31     0K    16K CPU2   2 123:15 100.00% idle:
> > cpu2
> >>    17 root        1 171 ki31     0K    16K CPU1   1 123:15 100.00% idle:
> > cpu1
> >>    37 root        1 -68    -     0K    16K CPU7   7   9:09 100.00% 
irq256:
> > bce0
> >>    13 root        1 171 ki31     0K    16K CPU5   5 123:49 99.07% idle: 
cpu5
> >>    40 root        1 -68    -     0K    16K WAIT   0   4:40 51.17% irq257:
> > bce1
> >>    18 root        1 171 ki31     0K    16K RUN    0 117:48 49.37% idle: 
cpu0
> >>    11 root        1 171 ki31     0K    16K RUN    7 115:25  0.00% idle: 
cpu7
> >>    19 root        1 -32    -     0K    16K WAIT   0   0:39  0.00% swi4:
> > clock s
> >> 14367 root        1  44    0  5176K  3104K select 2   0:01  0.00% dhcpd
> >>    22 root        1 -16    -     0K    16K -      3   0:01  0.00% yarrow
> >>    25 root        1 -24    -     0K    16K WAIT   0   0:00  0.00% swi6:
> > Giant t
> >> 11658 root        1  44    0 32936K  4540K select 1   0:00  0.00% sshd
> >> 14224 root        1  44    0 32936K  4540K select 5   0:00  0.00% sshd
> >>    41 root        1 -60    -     0K    16K WAIT   0   0:00  0.00% irq1:
> > atkbd0
> >>     4 root        1  -8    -     0K    16K -      2   0:00  0.00% g_down
> >>
> >> The bce0 interface interrupt (irq256) gets stressed out which already
> >> have 100% of CPU7 while CPU0 is around 51.17%. Any more
> >> recommendations? Is there anything we can do about optimization with
> >> MSI?
> >
> > Well, on 7.x you can try turning net.isr.direct off (sysctl).  However, it
> > seems you are hammering your bce0 interface.  You might want to try using
> > polling on bce0 and seeing if it keeps up with the traffic better.
> >
> > --
> > John Baldwin
> >
> 
> With net.isr.direct=0, my IBM system lessens CPU utilization per
> interface (bce0 and bce1) but swi1:net increase its utilization.
> Can you explained what's happening here? What does net.isr.direct do
> with the decrease of CPU utilization on its interface? I really wanted
> to know what happened internally during the packets being processed
> and received by the interfaces then to the device interrupt up to the
> software interrupt level because I am confused when enabling/disabling
> net.isr.direct in sysctl. Is there a tool that can we used to trace
> this process just to be able to know which part of the kernel internal
> is doing the bottleneck especially when net.isr.direct=1? By the way
> with device polling enabled, the system experienced packet errors and
> the interface throughput is worst, so I avoid using it though.
> 
>    PID USERNAME  THR PRI NICE   SIZE    RES STATE  C   TIME   WCPU COMMAND
> 
>    16 root        1 171 ki31     0K    16K CPU10  a  86:06 89.06% idle: 
cpu10
>    27 root        1 -44    -     0K    16K CPU1   1  34:37 82.67% swi1: net
>    52 root        1 -68    -     0K    16K WAIT   b  51:59 59.77% irq32: 
bce1
>    15 root        1 171 ki31     0K    16K RUN    b  69:28 43.16% idle: 
cpu11
>    25 root        1 171 ki31     0K    16K RUN    1 115:35 24.27% idle: cpu1
>    51 root        1 -68    -     0K    16K CPU10  a  35:21 13.48% irq31: 
bce0

With net.isr.direct=1, the ithread tries to pass the received packets up to 
IP/UDP/TCP/socket directly.  With net.isr.direct=0, the ithread places 
received packets on a queue and sends a signal to 'sw1: net'.  The swi thread 
wakes up, pulls the packets off of the queue and sends them to 
IP/UDP/TCP/socket.

-- 
John Baldwin


More information about the freebsd-smp mailing list