Adding a Scheduling

Policy to the Linux

Kernel

By Juan M. Banda
CS518 Advanced Operating Systems
 Presentation Outline
 Introduction
 Project Description / Challenges

 Background Information

 Project Steps

 Achievements

 References
 Introduction
 What is Linux?
 Operating system for computers, comparable to Windows or Mac OS X
 Created starting in 1991 by Finnish programmer Linus Torvalds with the
assistance of developers from around the globe
 Runs on a wide variety of hardware platforms, from huge mainframes to
desktop PCs to cell phones
 Licensed under the Free Software Foundation's GNU Project's GNU
General Public License, version 2, which lets users modify and
redistribute the software
 You can think of Linux as having two parts -- a kernel, which is the basic
interface between the hardware and other system software, and the
functions that run on top of it, such as a graphical user interface (GUI)
and application programs
Project Description / Challenges
 Idea: Implement a new scheduling policy

 Purpose: The new policy should schedule processes in the background.

 Problem 1: SCHED_IDLE already does this

 Modification: Policy should schedule process in a lower priority than

SCHED_IDLE

 Problem 2: Kernel 2.6 scheduler is considerably different than in Kernel 2.4

 Background Information
 Kernel 2.4 scheduler major features:

 An O(n) scheduler - Goes through the entire “ global runqueue” to determine the
next task to be run. This is an O(n) algorithm where 'n' is the number of
processes. The time taken was proportional to the number of active processes in
the system

 A Global runqueue - All CPUs had to wait for other CPUs to finish execution.

 A Global runqueue for all processors in a symmetric multiprocessing system

(SMP). This meant a task could be scheduled on any processor -- which can be
good for load balancing but bad for memory caches. For example, suppose a task
executed on CPU-1, and its data was in that processor's cache. If the task got
rescheduled to CPU-2, its data would need to be invalidated in CPU-1 and
brought into CPU-2

 This lead to large performance hits during heavy workloads

 Background Information
 Kernel 2.4 Scheduler Policies:

 SCHED_FIFO - A First-In, First-Out real-time process

When the scheduler assigns the CPU to the process, it leaves the process
descriptor in its current position in the runqueue list. If no other higher-
priority realtime process is runnable, the process will continue to use the
CPU as long as it wishes, even if other real-time processes having the
same priority are runnable
 Background Information
 SCHED_RR - A Round Robin real-time process
When the scheduler assigns the CPU to the process, it puts the process
descriptor at the end of the runqueue list. This policy ensures a fair
assignment of CPU time to all SCHED_RR real-time processes that have
the same priority

 SCHED_OTHER - A conventional, time-shared process

The policy field also encodes a SCHED_YIELD binary flag. This flag is
set when the process invokes the sched_ yield( ) system call (a way of
voluntarily relinquishing the processor without the need to start an I/O
operation or go to sleep. The scheduler puts the process descriptor at the
bottom of the runqueue list
 Background Information
 Kernel 2.6
 The 2.6 scheduler was designed and implemented by Ingo Molnar. His motivation
in working on the new scheduler was to create a completely O(1) scheduler for
wakeup, context-switch, and timer interrupt overhead
 One of the issues that triggered the need for a new scheduler was the use of
Java virtual machines (JVMs). The Java programming model uses many
threads of execution, which results in lots of overhead for scheduling in an
O(n) scheduler
 Each CPU has a runqueue made up of 140 priority lists that are serviced
in FIFO order. Tasks that are scheduled to execute are added to the end
of their respective runqueue's priority list
 Each task has a time slice that determines how much time it's permitted
to execute
 The first 100 priority lists of the runqueue are reserved for real-time
tasks, and the last 40 are used for user tasks (MAX_RT_PRIO=100 and
MAX_PRIO=140)
 Background Information
 In addition to the CPU's runqueue, which is called the active runqueue, there's also an expired
runqueue
 When a task on the active runqueue uses all of its time slice, it's moved to the expired
runqueue. During the move, its time slice is recalculated (and so is its priority)
 If no tasks exist on the active runqueue for a given priority, the pointers for the active and
expired runqueues are swapped, thus making the expired priority list the active one
 Background Information
 O(1) Algorithm ( Constant time algorithm )
 Choose the task on the highest priority list to execute
 To make this process more efficient, a bitmap is used to define when tasks are on
a given priority list
 On most architectures, a find-first-bit-set instruction is used to find the highest
priority bit set in one of five 32-bit words (for the 140 priorities)
 The time it takes to find a task to execute depends not on the number of active
tasks but instead on the number of priorities
 This makes the 2.6 scheduler an O(1) process because the time to schedule is both
fixed and deterministic regardless of the number of active tasks
 Background Information
 SMP Support:
 Even though the prior scheduler worked in SMP systems, its big-lock architecture
meant that while a CPU was choosing a task to dispatch, the runqueue was locked
by the CPU, and others had to wait
 The 2.6 scheduler doesn't use a single lock for scheduling; instead, it has a lock on
each runqueue. This allows all CPUs to schedule tasks without contention from
other CPUs
 Task preemption:
 This means a lower-priority task won't execute while a higher-priority task is ready
to run. The scheduler preempts the lower-priority process, places the process back
on its priority list, and then reschedules
 Background Information
Function name Function description
schedule The main scheduler function. Schedules the highest priority task for execution.

Checks the CPU to see whether an imbalance exists, and attempts to move tasks if not
load_balance
balanced.

Returns the effective priority of a task (based on the static priority, but includes any rewards or
effective_prio
penalties).

recalc_task_prio Determines a task's bonus or penalty based on its idle time.

source_load Conservatively calculates the load of the source CPU (from which a task could be migrated).

target_load Liberally calculates the load of a target CPU (where a task has the potential to be migrated).

migration_thread High-priority system thread that migrates tasks between CPUs.

 Background Information
 Kernel 2.6 Scheduler Policies:

 SCHED_NORMAL - A conventional, time-shared process (used to be

called SCHED_OTHER), for normal tasks
 Each task assigned a “Nice” value
 PRIO = MAX_RT_PRIO + NICE + 20
 Assigned a time slice
 Tasks at the same prio(rity) are round-robined
 Ensures Priority + Fairness
 Background Information

 SCHED_FIFO - A First-In, First-Out real-time process

 Run until they relinquish the CPU voluntarily
 Priority levels maintained
 Not pre-empted !!

 SCHED_RR - A Round Robin real-time process

 Assigned a timeslice and run till the timeslice is exhausted.
 Once all RR tasks of a given prio(rity) level exhaust their timeslices, their
timeslices are refilled and they continue running
 Prio(rity) levels are maintained
 Background Information
 SCHED_BATCH - for "batch" style execution of processes
 For computing-intensive tasks
 Timeslices are long and processes are round robin scheduled
 lowest priority tasks are batch-processed (nice +19)

 SCHED_IDLE - for running very low priority background job

 nice value has no influence for this policy
 extremely low priority (lower than +19 nice)

 SCHED_ISO - To be implemented!!
 Background Information
 Interactivity estimator
 Dynamically scales a tasks priority based on it's interactivity
 Interactive tasks receive a prio bonus [ -5 ]
 Hence a larger timeslice

 CPU bound tasks receive a prio penalty [ +5 ]

 Interactivity estimated using a running sleep average.
 Interactive tasks are I/O bound. They wait for events to occur.

 Sleeping tasks are I/O bound or interactive !!

 Actual bonus/penalty is determined by comparing the sleep average

against a constant maximum sleep average.
 Does not apply to RT tasks
 Background Information
 When a task finishes it's timeslice :
 It's interactivity is estimated
 Interactive tasks can be inserted into the 'Active' array again
 Else, priority is recalculated
 Inserted into the NEW priority level in the 'Expired' array
 Re-inserting interactive tasks
 To avoid delays, interactive tasks may be re-inserted into the 'active' array
after their timeslice has expired
 Done only if tasks in the 'expired' array have run recently
 Done to prevent starvation of tasks

 Decision to re-insert depends on the task's priority level

 Background Information
 Timeslice distribution:

 Priority is recalculated only after expiring a timeslice

 Interactive tasks may become non-interactive during their LARGE
timeslices, thus starving other processes
 To prevent this, time-slices are divided into chunks of 20ms
 A task of equal priority may preempt the running task every 20ms
 The preempted task is requeued and is round-robined in it's priority level.
 Also, priority recalculation happens every 20ms
 Background Information
 From /usr/src/linux-2.6.x/kernel/sched.c
 void schedule()
 The main scheduling function.
 Upon return, the highest priority process will be active

 Data
 struct runqueue()
 The main per-CPU runqueue data structure
 struct task_struct()
 The main per-process data structure
 Background Information
 Process Control methods
 void set_user_nice ( ... )
 Sets the nice value of task p to given value

 int setscheduler( ... )

 o Sets the scheduling policy and parameters for a given pid

 rt_task( pid )
 o Returns true if pid is real-time, false if not

 yield()
 Place the current process at the end of the runqueue and call
schedule()
 Background Information
 Benchmark
 Each individual test runs a multiple of 25 processes, increments to the next
multiple and reruns the benchmark. This continues until a max level, set by the
tester, is achieved
 Background Information
 Now that we know all of this…..

THEY CHANGED IT AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 Background Information
 Kernel 2.6.23 scheduler
 Called Completely Fair Scheduler (CFS)
 Does not use runqueues, it uses a time-ordered rbtree to build a 'timeline'
of future task execution, and thus has no 'array switch' artifacts for the
SCHED_NORMAL policy (or SCHED_OTHER)
 Has no notion of 'timeslices' and has no heuristics whatsoever
 sched_rt.c implements SCHED_FIFO and SCHED_RR semantics, in a
simpler way than the vanilla scheduler does. It uses 100 runqueues (for all
100 RT priority levels, instead of 140 in the vanilla scheduler) and it needs
no expired array
 SCHED_BATCH is handled by the CFS scheduler module too
 Project Steps
 To start, we need to figure out what version of the kernel we are currently running.
We'll use the uname command for that

$ uname -r
2.6.24-3-generic

 Now we need to Install the Linux source for your kernel, you can substitute the kernel
number for whatever you are running. We also need to install the curses library and
some other tools to help us compile

$ sudo apt-get install linux-source-2.6.24 kernel-package libncurses5-dev fakeroot

 If you are curious where the Linux source gets installed to, you can use the dpkg
command to tell you the files within a package

$ dpkg -L linux-source-2.6.17
 Project Steps
 To make things easier, we'll put ourselves in root mode by using sudo to open
a new shell. There's other ways to do this, but I prefer this way

$ sudo /bin/bash

 Now change directory into the source location so that we can

install. Note that you may need to install the bunzip utility if it's
not installed

$ cd /usr/src
$ bunzip2 linux-source-2.6.24.tar.bz2
$ tar xvf linux-source-2.6.24.tar
$ ln -s linux-source-2.6.24 linux
 Project Steps
 Make a copy of your existing kernel configuration to use for the custom
compile process
$ cp /boot/config-`uname -r` /usr/src/linux/.config

 First we'll do a make clean, just to make sure everything is ready for the
compile
$ make-kpkg clean

 Next we'll actually compile the kernel. This will take a LONG FREAKING
TIME, so go find something interesting to do
$ fakeroot make-kpkg --initrd --append-to-version=-custom kernel_image kernel_headers

 This process will create two .deb files in /usr/src that contain the kernel
 Project Steps
 Please note that when you run these next commands, this will set the new kernel as the
new default kernel. This could break things! If your machine doesn't boot, you can hit
Esc at the GRUB loading menu, and select your old kernel. You can then disable the
kernel in /boot/grub/menu.lst or try and compile again

$ dpkg -i linux-image-2.6.24.3-custom_2.6.24.3-custom-
10.00.Custom_i386.deb
$ dpkg -i linux-headers-2.6.24.3-custom_2.6.24.3-custom-
10.00.Custom_i386.deb

 Now reboot your machine. If everything works, you should be running your
new custom kernel. You can check this by using uname. Note that the exact
number will be different on your machine

$ uname -r
2.6.17.14-ubuntu1-custom
 Project Steps
 Actual Kernel Files Modified:
 sched.h
 sched.c

 Auxiliary Program Modified

 chrt.c
 Project Steps
 Kernel files modifications:

 Added an new policy called SCHED_JUAN

 Given a static lower priority value than
SCHED_IDLE

 Code? See the attached files

 Project Steps
 Auxiliary Program:
 chrt command is part of util-linux package - low-level system utilities that are
necessary for a Linux system to function. It is installed by default under Ubuntu
and almost all other Linux distributions

 You can get / set attributes of running processes

 Compile: gcc chrtJ.c -o chrtJU

 Changed chrt source to support SCHED_JUAN

 Code ? See attached file (chrtJ.c)

 Achievements

 Project Demo
 Project Steps

 Is the policy useful ?

 Improvements ?
Questions ?
 References
 Kernel Design
 http://aplawrence.com/Linux/linux26_features.html
 http://www.linux.com/whatislinux/119700
 http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-scheduler/
 http://lxr.linux.no/linux+v2.6.24/Documentation/sched-design.txt

 Kernel Compiling Guide

 http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/how-to-customize-your-ubuntu-kernel/

 SCHED_IDLE Reference:
 https://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/linux-kernel/2008/3/3/1051054

 Chrt
 http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/howto-set-real-time-scheduling-priority-process/

 Benchmark
 http://devresources.linux-foundation.org/craiger/hackbench/