Re: [PATCH v2 2/3] vmstat: skip periodic vmstat update for nohz full CPUs

[Marcelo Tosatti]

On Mon, Jun 05, 2023 at 05:55:49PM +0200, Michal Hocko wrote:
> > The example above shows an additional 7us for the
> > 
> >         oslat -> kworker -> oslat
> > 
> > switches. In the case of a virtualized CPU, and the vmstat_update
> > interruption in the host (of a qemu-kvm vcpu), the latency penalty
> > observed in the guest is higher than 50us, violating the acceptable
> > latency threshold.
> > 
> > The isolated vCPU can perform operations that modify per-CPU page counters,
> > for example to complete I/O operations:
> > 
> >       CPU 11/KVM-9540    [001] dNh1.  2314.248584: mod_zone_page_state <-__folio_end_writeback
> >       CPU 11/KVM-9540    [001] dNh1.  2314.248585: <stack trace>
> >  => 0xffffffffc042b083
> >  => mod_zone_page_state
> >  => __folio_end_writeback
> >  => folio_end_writeback
> >  => iomap_finish_ioend
> >  => blk_mq_end_request_batch
> >  => nvme_irq
> >  => __handle_irq_event_percpu
> >  => handle_irq_event
> >  => handle_edge_irq
> >  => __common_interrupt
> >  => common_interrupt
> >  => asm_common_interrupt
> >  => vmx_do_interrupt_nmi_irqoff
> >  => vmx_handle_exit_irqoff
> >  => vcpu_enter_guest
> >  => vcpu_run
> >  => kvm_arch_vcpu_ioctl_run
> >  => kvm_vcpu_ioctl
> >  => __x64_sys_ioctl
> >  => do_syscall_64
> >  => entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe
> 
> OK, this is really useful. It is just not really clear whether the IO
> triggered here is from the guest or it a host activity.

Guest initiated I/O, since the host CPU is isolated.