Linux Scheduler

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Scheduling Basics
Tasks are divided into three groups, real time
processes, IO bound, and CPU bound
Real Time - Extremely high scheduling
requirements, needs a guarantee on how often they
will run, usually the highest priority process in a
system
IO bound - processes that spend most of their time
waiting for data going to or coming from the disk
Scheduling Basics cont.
CPU bound - Processes that consume
large amounts of cpu
Time slice - amount of time that a process
can run on the CPU
Preemption - When the execution of the
currently running process is interrupted in
order to run a different, higher priority
process
The schedule function
Schedule() is the function in the linux kernel that
does the actual scheduling
Has multiple ways of being run
Runs when a new process needs to be selected
for scheduling
Is called when the currently running process is
blocked, waiting for a resource
Each processor can call schedule on its own
Many device drivers will call schedule

2.4 Basics
1400 Lines of code
Three basic data structures
Basic data structure is schedule_data. This
data structure contains a pointer to the
currently running process and the timestamp
of the last time the schedule function ran
There is one run queue, and its a linked list
Schedule_data
struct schedule_data {
struct task_struct * curr;
cycles_t last_schedule;
} schedule_data;
char __pad
[SMP_CACHE_BYTES];
Schedule_data explained
Remarkably simple data structure
Defined in sched.c
Contains a time stamp of the last
process switch
Also contains a pointer to the process
that is currently running
2.4 SMP
Reschedule_idle checks to see if the
process that just moved out of the
running state should be moved to a
different cpu
It doesnt use the counter and nice
values directly, it uses the goodness
function to check priorities
Goodness takes into account the cost
of moving a process across cpus
2.6 Basics
5700 Lines of code
Run queue and priority arrays are the basic
data structures
One run queue per processor
Two priority arrays per run queue
Run Queue
spinlock_t lock;
unsigned long nr_running;
#ifdef CONFIG_SMP
unsigned long prio_bias;
unsigned long cpu_load[3];
#endif
unsigned long long nr_switches;
unsigned long nr_uninterruptible;
unsigned long expired_timestamp;
unsigned long long timestamp_last_tick;
task_t *curr, *idle;
struct mm_struct *prev_mm;
prio_array_t *active, *expired, arrays[2];
int best_expired_prio;
atomic_t nr_iowait;
#ifdef CONFIG_SMP
struct sched_domain *sd;
int active_balance;
int push_cpu;
task_t *migration_thread;
struct list_head migration_queue;
#endif
Run queue explained
Primary scheduling data structure
Defined in sched.c
Needs to be locked before its
modified
Locks are obtained on multiple
run queues in ascending order
Priority Array
struct prio_array {
unsigned int nr_active;
unsigned long
bitmap[BITMAP_SIZE];
struct list_head queue[MAX_PRIO];
};
Priority Arrays explained
Defined in sched.c
Provides constant running time for the scheduling
algorithm
Contains lists of runnable processes at each
priority level
A bitmap is used to efficiently discover the
highest priority process
When a task with priority 10 becomes runnable
bit 10 in the bitmap gets set to 1
2.6 SMP
Load_balance is the function that makes
sure each processor has a relatively equal
number of processes on it
Only is run on multi processor systems
Runs every millisecond when the system is
idle or every 200 milliseconds
Only tasks that are not running are moved
Big O running times
The 2.6 kernel has a
constant running time
O(1)
Leads to better scalability
than the 2.4 kernel
Also has a much more
complex implementation
Time slices are
calculated when a
processs timeslice is
used, before it moves to
the expired array
2.4 kernel has a
linear running time
in the worst case
Loops over the
process list at the
end of each time
quantum
Recalculates each
processess time
slice
Real time differences
2.6 provides soft
real time support
Real time
processes will
preempt regular
processes
Real time priorities
are set statically
Not all versions of the
2.4 kernel can offer
any real time
guarantees
Not all versions of the
2.4 kernel offer
preemption
Priority inversion
occurs frequently in
the 2.4 kernel
References
Understanding the Linux Kernel 2nd Edition
Kernel newbies
Linux Kernel Cross Reference
Linux Kernel Development
Linux Device Drivers 3rd Edition