During load balance, LBF_SOME_PINNED will be set if any candidate task
cannot be detached due to CPU affinity constraints. This can result in
setting env->sd->parent->sgc->group_imbalance, which can lead to a group
being classified as group_imbalanced (rather than any of the other, lower
group_type) when balancing at a higher level.
In workloads involving a single task per CPU, LBF_SOME_PINNED can often be
set due to per-CPU kthreads being the only other runnable tasks on any
given rq. This results in changing the group classification during
load-balance at higher levels when in reality there is nothing that can be
done for this affinity constraint: per-CPU kthreads, as the name implies,
don't get to move around (modulo hotplug shenanigans).
It's not as clear for userspace tasks - a task could be in an N-CPU cpuset
with N-1 offline CPUs, making it an "accidental" per-CPU task rather than
an intended one. KTHREAD_IS_PER_CPU gives us an indisputable signal which
we can leverage here to not set LBF_SOME_PINNED.
Note that the aforementioned classification to group_imbalance (when
nothing can be done) is especially problematic on big.LITTLE systems, which
have a topology the likes of:
DIE [ ]
MC [ ][ ]
0 1 2 3
L L B B
arch_scale_cpu_capacity(L) < arch_scale_cpu_capacity(B)
Here, setting LBF_SOME_PINNED due to a per-CPU kthread when balancing at MC
level on CPUs [0-1] will subsequently prevent CPUs [2-3] from classifying
the [0-1] group as group_misfit_task when balancing at DIE level. Thus, if
CPUs [0-1] are running CPU-bound (misfit) tasks, ill-timed per-CPU kthreads
can significantly delay the upgmigration of said misfit tasks. Systems
relying on ASYM_PACKING are likely to face similar issues.
Signed-off-by: Lingutla Chandrasekhar <clingutla@codeaurora.org>
[Use kthread_is_per_cpu() rather than p->nr_cpus_allowed]
[Reword changelog]
Signed-off-by: Valentin Schneider <valentin.schneider@arm.com>
Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@infradead.org>
Reviewed-by: Dietmar Eggemann <dietmar.eggemann@arm.com>
Reviewed-by: Vincent Guittot <vincent.guittot@linaro.org>
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20210407220628.3798191-2-valentin.schneider@arm.com
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