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Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/timers/no_hz.rst')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/timers/no_hz.rst | 25 |
1 files changed, 9 insertions, 16 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/timers/no_hz.rst b/Documentation/timers/no_hz.rst index 6cadad7c3aad..7fe8ef9718d8 100644 --- a/Documentation/timers/no_hz.rst +++ b/Documentation/timers/no_hz.rst @@ -70,6 +70,10 @@ interrupt. After all, the primary purpose of a scheduling-clock interrupt is to force a busy CPU to shift its attention among multiple duties, and an idle CPU has no duties to shift its attention among. +An idle CPU that is not receiving scheduling-clock interrupts is said to +be "dyntick-idle", "in dyntick-idle mode", "in nohz mode", or "running +tickless". The remainder of this document will use "dyntick-idle mode". + The CONFIG_NO_HZ_IDLE=y Kconfig option causes the kernel to avoid sending scheduling-clock interrupts to idle CPUs, which is critically important both to battery-powered devices and to highly virtualized mainframes. @@ -91,10 +95,6 @@ Therefore, systems with aggressive real-time response constraints often run CONFIG_HZ_PERIODIC=y kernels (or CONFIG_NO_HZ=n for older kernels) in order to avoid degrading from-idle transition latencies. -An idle CPU that is not receiving scheduling-clock interrupts is said to -be "dyntick-idle", "in dyntick-idle mode", "in nohz mode", or "running -tickless". The remainder of this document will use "dyntick-idle mode". - There is also a boot parameter "nohz=" that can be used to disable dyntick-idle mode in CONFIG_NO_HZ_IDLE=y kernels by specifying "nohz=off". By default, CONFIG_NO_HZ_IDLE=y kernels boot with "nohz=on", enabling @@ -129,11 +129,8 @@ adaptive-tick CPUs: At least one non-adaptive-tick CPU must remain online to handle timekeeping tasks in order to ensure that system calls like gettimeofday() returns accurate values on adaptive-tick CPUs. (This is not an issue for CONFIG_NO_HZ_IDLE=y because there are no running -user processes to observe slight drifts in clock rate.) Therefore, the -boot CPU is prohibited from entering adaptive-ticks mode. Specifying a -"nohz_full=" mask that includes the boot CPU will result in a boot-time -error message, and the boot CPU will be removed from the mask. Note that -this means that your system must have at least two CPUs in order for +user processes to observe slight drifts in clock rate.) Note that this +means that your system must have at least two CPUs in order for CONFIG_NO_HZ_FULL=y to do anything for you. Finally, adaptive-ticks CPUs must have their RCU callbacks offloaded. @@ -184,16 +181,12 @@ There are situations in which idle CPUs cannot be permitted to enter either dyntick-idle mode or adaptive-tick mode, the most common being when that CPU has RCU callbacks pending. -The CONFIG_RCU_FAST_NO_HZ=y Kconfig option may be used to cause such CPUs -to enter dyntick-idle mode or adaptive-tick mode anyway. In this case, -a timer will awaken these CPUs every four jiffies in order to ensure -that the RCU callbacks are processed in a timely fashion. - -Another approach is to offload RCU callback processing to "rcuo" kthreads +Avoid this by offloading RCU callback processing to "rcuo" kthreads using the CONFIG_RCU_NOCB_CPU=y Kconfig option. The specific CPUs to offload may be selected using The "rcu_nocbs=" kernel boot parameter, which takes a comma-separated list of CPUs and CPU ranges, for example, -"1,3-5" selects CPUs 1, 3, 4, and 5. +"1,3-5" selects CPUs 1, 3, 4, and 5. Note that CPUs specified by +the "nohz_full" kernel boot parameter are also offloaded. The offloaded CPUs will never queue RCU callbacks, and therefore RCU never prevents offloaded CPUs from entering either dyntick-idle mode |