2009-03-12 13:38:35

by Jan Engelhardt

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Subject: System tick rate

Hi,


is there an "official" way of obtaining the current tick rate when
CONFIG_NO_HZ? This is for a simple statistics display tool. Counting the
interrupts from /proc/interrupts (calculating the difference between two
timepoints) seems to work, though I have seen at least one x86 machine
where both IRQ0 and the LOC counters increase, making it not entirely
obvious which number to take as a base. Suggestions?


2009-03-12 14:20:52

by Arjan van de Ven

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Subject: Re: System tick rate

On Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:38:19 +0100 (CET)
Jan Engelhardt <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi,
>
>
> is there an "official" way of obtaining the current tick rate when
> CONFIG_NO_HZ?

what does "current tick rate" mean for you in a no-hz situation ?
is it the HZ value (which is supposed to be invisible from userspace,
so good luck) or the wakeup count ?



--
Arjan van de Ven Intel Open Source Technology Centre
For development, discussion and tips for power savings,
visit http://www.lesswatts.org

2009-03-12 14:46:03

by Jan Engelhardt

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: System tick rate


On Thursday 2009-03-12 15:21, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
>On Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:38:19 +0100 (CET) Jan Engelhardt wrote:
>>
>> is there an "official" way of obtaining the current tick rate when
>> CONFIG_NO_HZ?
>
>what does "current tick rate" mean for you in a no-hz situation ?
>is it the HZ value (which is supposed to be invisible from userspace,
>so good luck) or the wakeup count ?

Hm, I guess what I want is the number of timer interrupts which
occurred within the observation period that called the scheduler
code. (So that excludes RTC on usual x86en.)

2009-03-13 08:49:44

by Peter Zijlstra

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Subject: Re: System tick rate

On Thu, 2009-03-12 at 15:45 +0100, Jan Engelhardt wrote:
> On Thursday 2009-03-12 15:21, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> >On Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:38:19 +0100 (CET) Jan Engelhardt wrote:
> >>
> >> is there an "official" way of obtaining the current tick rate when
> >> CONFIG_NO_HZ?
> >
> >what does "current tick rate" mean for you in a no-hz situation ?
> >is it the HZ value (which is supposed to be invisible from userspace,
> >so good luck) or the wakeup count ?
>
> Hm, I guess what I want is the number of timer interrupts which
> occurred within the observation period that called the scheduler
> code. (So that excludes RTC on usual x86en.)

There is no tick rate with NO_HZ mode, only a max tick rate, but as
Arjan said, not even that is exposed to user-space.

I think Dave's Niagra has the crown here, because he ran into some bug
in the NO_HZ code some while back because he idled longer than we ever
seen before. I think it was in the order of 30 minutes or something
without a single wakeup of the CPU.



2009-03-16 18:11:45

by Jan Engelhardt

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: System tick rate


On Friday 2009-03-13 09:49, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
>On Thu, 2009-03-12 at 15:45 +0100, Jan Engelhardt wrote:
>> On Thursday 2009-03-12 15:21, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
>> >On Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:38:19 +0100 (CET) Jan Engelhardt wrote:
>> >>
>> >> is there an "official" way of obtaining the current tick rate when
>> >> CONFIG_NO_HZ?
>> >
>> >what does "current tick rate" mean for you in a no-hz situation ?
>> >is it the HZ value (which is supposed to be invisible from userspace,
>> >so good luck) or the wakeup count ?
>>
>> Hm, I guess what I want is the number of timer interrupts which
>> occurred within the observation period that called the scheduler
>> code. (So that excludes RTC on usual x86en.)
>
>There is no tick rate with NO_HZ mode, only a max tick rate, but as
>Arjan said, not even that is exposed to user-space.
>
>I think Dave's Niagra has the crown here, because he ran into some bug
>in the NO_HZ code some while back because he idled longer than we ever
>seen before. I think it was in the order of 30 minutes or something
>without a single wakeup of the CPU.
>
Well if it idled that long, it surely did not run any processes, did it?