Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S965063AbVJEVPo (ORCPT ); Wed, 5 Oct 2005 17:15:44 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S965113AbVJEVPo (ORCPT ); Wed, 5 Oct 2005 17:15:44 -0400 Received: from fmr24.intel.com ([143.183.121.16]:47539 "EHLO scsfmr004.sc.intel.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S965063AbVJEVPn (ORCPT ); Wed, 5 Oct 2005 17:15:43 -0400 Message-Id: <200510052115.j95LFgg07836@unix-os.sc.intel.com> From: "Chen, Kenneth W" To: Subject: kernel performance update - 2.6.14-rc3 Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2005 14:15:42 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook, Build 11.0.6353 Thread-Index: AcXJ8fEeHoTg0aMTQY6796I8IBYABA== X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2180 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1797 Lines: 34 Kernel performance data for 2.6.14-rc3 is updated at: http://kernel-perf.sourceforge.net We are continuing our investigation with volanomark regression seen with HZ rate reduced from default 1K to 250. The workload is run with loopback interface. Preliminarily, we think it is related to how softirq is invoked. Multiple threads are usually blocked waiting on incoming socket data (sleep side kernel via sk_wait_data function). It needs an external event (i.e., NIC receiving a packet over the wire and subsequence hw interrupt) to trigger a thread wakeup. However, with software loopback device, the link between the xmit and rcv is done via softirq. Even though softirq is invoked at the end of dev_queue_xmit() via local_bh_enable(), not all execution of softirq will result a __wake_up(). With higher HZ rate, timer interrupt is more frequent and thus more softirq invocation and leads to more __wake_up(), which then takes us to higher throughput because cpu spend less time in idle. We are continuing with more experiments to follow up. dbench is catching some attention. We just ran it with default parameter. I don't think default parameter is the right one to use on some of our configurations. For example, it shows +100% improvement on 4P Xeon between latest kernel and 2.6.9, while showing -45% on 4P ia64. It just doesn't make much sense to me. Does any expert out there have recommendation What are the proper parameter to use for this workload? Same thing goes to tbench (what is the proper parameter to use here?). - Ken - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/