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Date:   Wed, 3 Feb 2021 15:16:47 +0000
From:   Qais Yousef <qais.yousef@arm.com>
To:     Valentin Schneider <valentin.schneider@arm.com>
Cc:     linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>,
        Vincent Guittot <vincent.guittot@linaro.org>,
        Dietmar Eggemann <dietmar.eggemann@arm.com>,
        Morten Rasmussen <morten.rasmussen@arm.com>,
        Quentin Perret <qperret@google.com>,
        Pavan Kondeti <pkondeti@codeaurora.org>,
        Rik van Riel <riel@surriel.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 7/8] sched/fair: Attempt misfit active balance when
 migration_type != migrate_misfit
Message-ID: <20210203151647.ygvlktrivpw4a7qh@e107158-lin>
References: <20210128183141.28097-1-valentin.schneider@arm.com>
 <20210128183141.28097-8-valentin.schneider@arm.com>
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On 01/28/21 18:31, Valentin Schneider wrote:
> Consider a 4-CPU big.LITTLE system with CPUs 0-1 as LITTLEs and CPUs 2-3 as
> bigs. The resulting sched_domain hierarchy is:
> 
>   DIE [          ]
>   MC  [    ][    ]
>        0  1  2  3
> 
> When running a multithreaded CPU-bound workload (i.e. 1 hog per CPU), the
> expected behaviour is to have the about-to-idle big CPUs pull a hog from
> the LITTLEs, since bigs will complete their work sooner than LITTLEs.
> 
> Further Consider a scenario where:
> - CPU0 is idle (e.g. its hog got migrated to one of the big CPUs)
> - CPU1 is currently executing a per-CPU kworker, preempting the CPU hog
> - CPU2 and CPU3 are executing CPU-hogs
> 
> CPU0 goes through load_balance() at MC level, and tries to pick stuff from
> CPU1, but:
> - the hog can't be pulled, because it's task_hot()
> - the kworker can't be pulled, because it's pinned to CPU1, which sets
>   LBF_SOME_PINNED
> 
> This load balance attempts ends with no load pulled, LBF_SOME_PINNED set,
> and as a consequence we set the imbalance flag of DIE's [0, 1]
> sched_group_capacity.
> 
> Shortly after, CPU2 completes its work and is about to go idle. It goes
> through the newidle_balance(), and we would really like it to active
> balance the hog running on CPU1 (which is a misfit task). However,
> sgc->imbalance is set for the LITTLE group at DIE level, so the group gets
> classified as group_imbalanced rather than group_misfit_task.
> 
> Unlike group_misfit_task (via migrate_misfit), the active balance logic
> doesn't have any specific case for group_imbalanced, so CPU2 ends up going
> idle. We'll have to wait for a load balance on CPU0 or CPU1 to happen and
> clear the imbalance flag, and then for another DIE-level load-balance on
> CPU2 to happen to pull the task off of CPU1. That's several precious
> milliseconds wasted down the drain.

I think that might help with in games where some worker threads could get end
up on little cores and this delay in up migration could cause frames to drop.

> 
> Giving group_misfit_task a higher group_classify() priority than
> group_imbalance doesn't seem like the right thing to do. Instead, make
> need_active_balance() return true for any migration_type when the

s/need_active_balance()/voluntary_active_balance()/?

> destination CPU is idle and the source CPU has a misfit task.
> 
> While at it, add an sd_has_asym_cpucapacity() guard in
> need_active_balance().

ditto.

> 
> Signed-off-by: Valentin Schneider <valentin.schneider@arm.com>
> ---
>  kernel/sched/fair.c | 13 +++++++++++++
>  1 file changed, 13 insertions(+)
> 
> diff --git a/kernel/sched/fair.c b/kernel/sched/fair.c
> index 0ac2f876b86f..cba9f97d9beb 100644
> --- a/kernel/sched/fair.c
> +++ b/kernel/sched/fair.c
> @@ -9557,9 +9557,22 @@ static int need_active_balance(struct lb_env *env)
>  			return 1;
>  	}
>  
> +	if (!sd_has_asym_cpucapacity(sd))
> +		return 0;
> +
>  	if (env->migration_type == migrate_misfit)
>  		return 1;
>  
> +	/*
> +	 * If we failed to pull anything and the src_rq has a misfit task, but
> +	 * the busiest group_type was higher than group_misfit_task, try to
> +	 * go for a misfit active balance anyway.
> +	 */
> +	if ((env->idle != CPU_NOT_IDLE) &&
> +	    env->src_rq->misfit_task_load &&
> +	    cpu_capacity_greater(env->dst_cpu, env->src_cpu))
> +		return 1;
> +

Reviewed-by: Qais Yousef <qais.yousef@arm.com>

Thanks

--
Qais Yousef

>  	return 0;
>  }
>  
> -- 
> 2.27.0
>