Re: [RFC 3/5] sched: Add CPU rate hard caps

[Peter Williams <pwil3058@bigpond.net.au>]

Matt Helsley wrote:
> On Fri, 2006-06-02 at 11:33 +1000, Peter Williams wrote:
>> Al Boldi wrote:
>>> Chandra Seetharaman wrote:
>>>> On Thu, 2006-06-01 at 14:04 +0530, Balbir Singh wrote:
>>>>> Kirill Korotaev wrote:
>>>>>>> Do you have any documented requirements for container resource
>>>>>>> management?
>>>>>>> Is there a minimum list of features and nice to have features for
>>>>>>> containers
>>>>>>> as far as resource management is concerned?
>>>>>> Sure! You can check OpenVZ project (http://openvz.org) for example of
>>>>>> required resource management. BTW, I must agree with other people here
>>>>>> who noticed that per-process resource management is really useless and
>>>>>> hard to use :(
>>>> I totally agree.
>>>>
>>>>> I'll take a look at the references. I agree with you that it will be
>>>>> useful to have resource management for a group of tasks.
>>> For Resource Management to be useful it must depend on Resource Control.  
>>> Resource Control depends on per-process accounting.  Per-process accounting, 
>>> when abstracted sufficiently, may enable higher level routines, preferrably 
>>> in userland, to extend functionality at will.  All efforts should really go 
>>> into the successful abstraction of per-process accounting.
>> I couldn't agree more.  All that's needed in the kernel is low level per 
>> task control and statistics gathering.  The rest can be done in user space.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> 	I'm assuming by "The rest can be done in user space" you mean that
> tasks can be grouped, accounting information updated (% CPU), and
> various knobs (nice) can be turned to keep task resource (CPU) usage
> under control.
> 
> If I seem to be describing your suggestion then I don't think it will
> work. Below you'll find the reasons I've come to this conclusion. Am I
> oversimplifying or misunderstanding something critical?
> 
> 	Groups are needed to prevent processes from consuming unlimited
> resources using clone/fork. However, since our accounting sources and
> control knobs are per-task we must adjust per-task knobs within a group
> every time accounting indicates a change in resource usage.
> 
> 	Let us suppose we have a UP system with 3 tasks -- group X: X1, X2; and
> Z. By adjusting nice values of X1 and X2 Z is responsible for ensuring
> that group X does not exceed its limit of 50% CPU. Further suppose that
> X1 and X2 are each using 25% of the CPU. In order to prevent X1 + X2
> from exceeding 50% each must be limited to 25% by an appropriate nice
> value. [Note the hand wave: I'm assuming nice can be mapped to a
> predictable percentage of CPU on a UP system.]
> 
> 	When accounting data indicates X2 has dropped to 15% of the CPU, Z may
> raise X1's limit (to 35% at most) and it must lower X2's limit (down to
> as little as 15%). Z must raise X1's limit by some amount (delta)
> otherwise X1 could never increase its CPU usage. Z must decrease X2 to
> 25 - delta, otherwise the sum could exceed 50%. [Aside: In fact, if we
> have N tasks in group X then it seems Z ought to adjust N nice values by
> a total of delta. How delta gets distributed limits the rate at which
> CPU usage may increase and would ideally depend on future changes in
> usage.]
> 
> There are two problems as I see it:
> 
> 1) If X1 grows to use 35% then X2's usage can't grow back from 15% until
> X1 relents. This is seems unpleasantly like cooperative scheduling
> within group X because if we take this to its limit X2 gets 0% and X1
> gets 50% -- effectively starving X2. What little I know about nice
> suggests this wouldn't really happen. However I think may highlight one
> case where fiddling with nice can't effectively control CPU usage.
> 
> 2) Suppose we add group Y with tasks Y1-YM, Y's CPU usage is limited to
> 49%, each task of Y uses its limit of (M/49)% CPU, and the remaining 1%
> is left for Z (i.e. the single CPU is being used heavily). Z must use
> this 1% to read accounting information and adjust nice values as
> described above. If X1 spawns X3 we're likely in trouble -- Z might not
> get to run for a while but X3 has inheritted X1's nice value. If we
> return to our initial assumption that X1 and X2 are each using their
> limit of 25% then X3 will get limited to 25% too. The sum of Xi can now
> exceed 50% until Z is scheduled next. This only gets worse if there is
> an imbalance between X1 and X2 as described earlier. In that case group
> X could use 100% CPU until Z is scheduled! It also probably gets worse
> as load increases and the number of scheduling opportunities for Z
> decrease.
> 
> 
> 	I don't see how task Z could solve the second problem. As with UP, in
> SMP I think it depends on when Z (or one Z fixed to each CPU) is
> scheduled.
> 
> 	I think these are simple scenarios that demonstrate the problem with
> splitting resource management into accounting and control with userspace
> in between.

You're trying to do it all with nice.  I said it could be done with nice 
plus the CPU capping functionality my patch provides.  Plus the stats of 
course.

Peter
-- 
Peter Williams                                   pwil3058@bigpond.net.au

"Learning, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious."
  -- Ambrose Bierce