Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2010 21:15:40 -0500
From: Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@redhat.com>
To: Shaohua Li <shaohua.li@intel.com>
Cc: lkml <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>, Jens Axboe <jaxboe@fusionio.com>,
        "czoccolo@gmail.com" <czoccolo@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [patch 2/3]cfq-iosched: schedule dispatch for noidle queue
Message-ID: <20101109021540.GA29210@redhat.com>
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 <20101108142842.GC16767@redhat.com>
 <1289266267.23014.196.camel@sli10-conroe>
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On Tue, Nov 09, 2010 at 09:31:07AM +0800, Shaohua Li wrote:
> On Mon, 2010-11-08 at 22:28 +0800, Vivek Goyal wrote:
> > On Mon, Nov 08, 2010 at 10:07:18AM +0800, Shaohua Li wrote:
> > > A queue is idle at cfq_dispatch_requests(), but it gets noidle later. Unless
> > > other task explictly does unplug or all requests are drained, we will not
> > > deliever requests to the disk even cfq_arm_slice_timer doesn't make the
> > > queue idle. For example, cfq_should_idle() returns true because of
> > > service_tree->count == 1, and then other queues are added. Note, I didn't
> > > see obvious performance impacts so far with the patch, but just thought
> > > this could be a problem.
> > > 
> > > Signed-off-by: Shaohua Li <shaohua.li@intel.com>
> > > 
> > > ---
> > >  block/cfq-iosched.c |   23 ++++++++++++++++++++++-
> > >  1 file changed, 22 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
> > > 
> > > Index: linux/block/cfq-iosched.c
> > > ===================================================================
> > > --- linux.orig/block/cfq-iosched.c	2010-11-08 08:41:20.000000000 +0800
> > > +++ linux/block/cfq-iosched.c	2010-11-08 08:43:51.000000000 +0800
> > > @@ -3265,6 +3265,10 @@ cfq_should_preempt(struct cfq_data *cfqd
> > >  	if (cfq_class_rt(new_cfqq) && !cfq_class_rt(cfqq))
> > >  		return true;
> > >  
> > > +	/* An idle queue should not be idle now for some reason */
> > > +	if (RB_EMPTY_ROOT(&cfqq->sort_list) && !cfq_should_idle(cfqd, cfqq))
> > > +		return true;
> > > +
> > >  	if (!cfqd->active_cic || !cfq_cfqq_wait_request(cfqq))
> > >  		return false;
> > >  
> > > @@ -3508,8 +3512,25 @@ static void cfq_completed_request(struct
> > >  		}
> > >  	}
> > >  
> > > -	if (!cfqd->rq_in_driver)
> > > +	if (!cfqd->rq_in_driver) {
> > >  		cfq_schedule_dispatch(cfqd);
> > > +		return;
> > > +	}
> > > +	/*
> > > +	 * A queue is idle at cfq_dispatch_requests(), but it gets noidle
> > > +	 * later. We schedule a dispatch if the queue has no requests,
> > > +	 * otherwise the disk is actually in idle till all requests
> > > +	 * are finished even cfq_arm_slice_timer doesn't make the queue idle
> > > +	 * */
> > 
> > Why do we have to wait for all requests to finish in device? Will driver
> > most likely not ask for next request when 1-2 requests have completed
> > and at that time we should expire the queue if queue is no more marked
> > as "noidle"?
> The issue is a queue is idle just because it's the last queue of the
> service tree. Then a new queue is added and the idled queue should not
> idle now. we should preempt the idled queue soon. does this make sense
> to you?

If that's the case then you should just modify should_preempt() so that
addition of a new queue could preempt an empty queue which has now become
noidle.

You have also modified cfq_completed_request() function, which will wake
up the worker thread and then try to dispatch a request. IMHO, in practice
driver asks for new request almost immediately and you don't gain much
by this additional wakeup.

So my point being, that we increased the code complexity for no visible
performance improvement also increased thread wakeups resulting in more
cpu consumption.

If there was a visible performance gain in your testing then it would have
made sense but you said that you did not notice any improvements. Then
why to increase the complexity.

Vivek
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