Re: [PATCH] nohz/cpuset: Make a CPU stick with do_timer() duty in thepresence of nohz cpusets

From: Frederic Weisbecker
Date: Mon Nov 19 2012 - 20:58:09 EST


2012/11/20 Steven Rostedt <rostedt@xxxxxxxxxxx>:
> On Mon, 2012-11-19 at 17:27 -0700, Hakan Akkan wrote:
>
>> >
>> > I suggest to rather define a tunable timekeeping duty CPU affinity in
>> > a cpumask file at /sys/devices/system/cpu/timekeeping and a toggle at
>> > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpuX/timekeeping (like the online file). This
>> > way the user can decide whether adaptive nohz CPU can handle
>> > timekeeping or this must be forced to other CPUs in order to enforce
>> > isolation.
>>
>> Well, users want tickless CPUs because they don't want timekeeping
>> (or any other kernel activity for that matter) to run in there. So, I believe
>> having that "timekeeping affinity" stay in the regular CPUs is good enough.
>> Please let me know how users could utilize these control files to do anything
>> other than keeping the timekeeping out of adaptive nohz CPUs.
>
> I agree. If we already have some /sys cpumask that denotes which CPUs
> will be adaptive NO_HZ (or simply isolated) then just keep the tick from
> ever going on those CPUs. If all but one CPU is set for nohz, and that
> one CPU goes idle, it should still be the one doing the tick.

If you want isolation on your full dynticks CPU it's right. Now you
could have lower requirements, a different policy that rather enforce
energy saving.

But I realize we can integrate such granularity later if users request
it and take the behaviour you both describe as the default for now. So
let's take that direction.

Thanks.
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/