[tip: sched/core] sched/fair: Add cgroup_mode: max

["tip-bot2 for Peter Zijlstra" <tip-bot2@linutronix.de>]

The following commit has been merged into the sched/core branch of tip:

Commit-ID:     90ac22ffef48dbc6e7561434b6e01753a859bb51
Gitweb:        https://git.kernel.org/tip/90ac22ffef48dbc6e7561434b6e01753a859bb51
Author:        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
AuthorDate:    Thu, 12 Mar 2026 15:42:35 +01:00
Committer:     Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
CommitterDate: Tue, 30 Jun 2026 10:56:52 +02:00

sched/fair: Add cgroup_mode: max

In order to avoid the average CPU fraction avg(F_g_n) becoming tiny '1/N',
assume each cgroup is maximally concurrent and distrubute 'N*weight', such
that:

	F_g_n' = N * F_g_n

Giving:

	avg(F_g_n') = N*avg(F_g_n) ~ N * 1/N = 1

And while this sounds like it solves things, remember what that ~ meant. There
is the corner case when a cgroup is minimally loaded, eg a single runnable
task, therefore limit the CPU fraction to that of a nice -20 task to avoid
getting too much load.

This last bit is what makes it different from a previous proposal to allow
raising cpu.weight to '100 * N', that would not limit the mininal concurrency
case and results in a very large F_g_n. And just like F_g_n << 1 is
problematic, so is F_g_n >> 1 for the exact same reasons (it would drown the
kthreads, but it also risks overflowing the load values).

So while this might appear to be a better scheme than the current default
scheme, it doesn't really handle less than maximal concurrency nicely -- it
clips and introduces artificially large weights. So where the traditional SMP
mode works well when nr_tasks << nr_cpus, MAX doesn't work well in that regime
and vice-versa.

The meaning of "cpu.weight" would be: weight per allowed CPU.

Included for completeness (and infrastructure).

Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@infradead.org>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260605124051.589618504%40infradead.org
---
 include/linux/cpuset.h |  6 +++++-
 kernel/cgroup/cpuset.c | 22 +++++++++++++++++-
 kernel/sched/debug.c   |  1 +-
 kernel/sched/fair.c    | 52 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++----
 4 files changed, 76 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/include/linux/cpuset.h b/include/linux/cpuset.h
index 65d76a3..9db2d4f 100644
--- a/include/linux/cpuset.h
+++ b/include/linux/cpuset.h
@@ -80,6 +80,7 @@ extern void lockdep_assert_cpuset_lock_held(void);
 extern void cpuset_cpus_allowed_locked(struct task_struct *p, struct cpumask *mask);
 extern void cpuset_cpus_allowed(struct task_struct *p, struct cpumask *mask);
 extern bool cpuset_cpus_allowed_fallback(struct task_struct *p);
+extern int cpuset_num_cpus(struct cgroup *cgroup);
 extern nodemask_t cpuset_mems_allowed(struct task_struct *p);
 #define cpuset_current_mems_allowed (current->mems_allowed)
 void cpuset_init_current_mems_allowed(void);
@@ -216,6 +217,11 @@ static inline bool cpuset_cpus_allowed_fallback(struct task_struct *p)
 	return false;
 }
 
+static inline int cpuset_num_cpus(struct cgroup *cgroup)
+{
+	return num_online_cpus();
+}
+
 static inline nodemask_t cpuset_mems_allowed(struct task_struct *p)
 {
 	return node_possible_map;
diff --git a/kernel/cgroup/cpuset.c b/kernel/cgroup/cpuset.c
index 591e3aa..e2f3da7 100644
--- a/kernel/cgroup/cpuset.c
+++ b/kernel/cgroup/cpuset.c
@@ -4124,6 +4124,28 @@ bool cpuset_cpus_allowed_fallback(struct task_struct *tsk)
 	return changed;
 }
 
+/*
+ * Returns the number of CPUs available for this cgroup.
+ *
+ * This only really works for cgroup-v2 where all the controllers are mounted
+ * in the same hierarchy. If not cgroup-v2 or no cpuset controller is
+ * configured it reverts to num_online_cpus().
+ */
+int cpuset_num_cpus(struct cgroup *cgrp)
+{
+	int nr = num_online_cpus();
+	struct cpuset *cs;
+
+	if (is_in_v2_mode()) {
+		guard(rcu)();
+		cs = css_cs(cgroup_e_css(cgrp, &cpuset_cgrp_subsys));
+		if (cs)
+			nr = cpumask_weight(cs->effective_cpus);
+	}
+
+	return nr;
+}
+
 void __init cpuset_init_current_mems_allowed(void)
 {
 	nodes_setall(current->mems_allowed);
diff --git a/kernel/sched/debug.c b/kernel/sched/debug.c
index 53b9e82..84e0ac4 100644
--- a/kernel/sched/debug.c
+++ b/kernel/sched/debug.c
@@ -640,6 +640,7 @@ static int cgroup_mode = 1;
 static const char *cgroup_mode_str[] = {
 	"up",
 	"smp",
+	"max",
 };
 
 static int sched_cgroup_mode(const char *str)
diff --git a/kernel/sched/fair.c b/kernel/sched/fair.c
index 3f8a280..b556d53 100644
--- a/kernel/sched/fair.c
+++ b/kernel/sched/fair.c
@@ -4801,12 +4801,10 @@ static inline int throttled_hierarchy(struct cfs_rq *cfs_rq);
  *
  * hence icky!
  */
-static long calc_smp_shares(struct cfs_rq *cfs_rq)
+static long __calc_smp_shares(struct cfs_rq *cfs_rq, long tg_shares, long shares_max)
 {
-	long tg_weight, tg_shares, load, shares;
 	struct task_group *tg = cfs_rq->tg;
-
-	tg_shares = READ_ONCE(tg->shares);
+	long tg_weight, load, shares;
 
 	load = max(scale_load_down(cfs_rq->load.weight), cfs_rq->avg.load_avg);
 
@@ -4832,7 +4830,48 @@ static long calc_smp_shares(struct cfs_rq *cfs_rq)
 	 * case no task is runnable on a CPU MIN_SHARES=2 should be returned
 	 * instead of 0.
 	 */
-	return clamp_t(long, shares, MIN_SHARES, tg_shares);
+	return clamp_t(long, shares, MIN_SHARES, shares_max);
+}
+
+static int tg_cpus(struct task_group *tg)
+{
+	int nr = num_online_cpus();
+
+	if (cpusets_enabled()) {
+		struct cgroup *cgrp = tg->css.cgroup;
+		if (cgrp)
+			nr = cpuset_num_cpus(cgrp);
+	}
+
+	return nr;
+}
+
+/*
+ * Func: min(fraction(nr_cpus * tg->shares), nice -20)
+ *
+ * Scale tg->shares by the maximal number of CPUs; but clip the max shares at
+ * nice -20, otherwise a single spinner on a 512 CPU machine would result in
+ * 512*NICE_0_LOAD, which is also crazy.
+ */
+static long calc_max_shares(struct cfs_rq *cfs_rq)
+{
+	struct task_group *tg = cfs_rq->tg;
+	int nr = tg_cpus(tg);
+	long tg_shares = READ_ONCE(tg->shares);
+	long max_shares = scale_load(sched_prio_to_weight[0]);
+	return __calc_smp_shares(cfs_rq, tg_shares * nr, max_shares);
+}
+
+/*
+ * Func: fraction(tg->shares)
+ *
+ * This infamously results in tiny shares when you have many CPUs.
+ */
+static long calc_smp_shares(struct cfs_rq *cfs_rq)
+{
+	struct task_group *tg = cfs_rq->tg;
+	long tg_shares = READ_ONCE(tg->shares);
+	return __calc_smp_shares(cfs_rq, tg_shares, tg_shares);
 }
 
 /*
@@ -4857,6 +4896,9 @@ void __sched_cgroup_mode_update(int mode)
 	default:
 		func = &calc_smp_shares;
 		break;
+	case 2:
+		func = &calc_max_shares;
+		break;
 	}
 	static_call_update(calc_group_shares, func);
 }