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1 Deadline Task Scheduling
2 ------------------------
3
4 CONTENTS
5 ========
6
7 0. WARNING
8 1. Overview
9 2. Scheduling algorithm
10 3. Scheduling Real-Time Tasks
11 3.1 Definitions
12 3.2 Schedulability Analysis for Uniprocessor Systems
13 3.3 Schedulability Analysis for Multiprocessor Systems
14 3.4 Relationship with SCHED_DEADLINE Parameters
15 4. Bandwidth management
16 4.1 System-wide settings
17 4.2 Task interface
18 4.3 Default behavior
19 4.4 Behavior of sched_yield()
20 5. Tasks CPU affinity
21 5.1 SCHED_DEADLINE and cpusets HOWTO
22 6. Future plans
23 A. Test suite
24 B. Minimal main()
25
26
27 0. WARNING
28 ==========
29
30 Fiddling with these settings can result in an unpredictable or even unstable
31 system behavior. As for -rt (group) scheduling, it is assumed that root users
32 know what they're doing.
33
34
35 1. Overview
36 ===========
37
38 The SCHED_DEADLINE policy contained inside the sched_dl scheduling class is
39 basically an implementation of the Earliest Deadline First (EDF) scheduling
40 algorithm, augmented with a mechanism (called Constant Bandwidth Server, CBS)
41 that makes it possible to isolate the behavior of tasks between each other.
42
43
44 2. Scheduling algorithm
45 ==================
46
47 SCHED_DEADLINE uses three parameters, named "runtime", "period", and
48 "deadline", to schedule tasks. A SCHED_DEADLINE task should receive
49 "runtime" microseconds of execution time every "period" microseconds, and
50 these "runtime" microseconds are available within "deadline" microseconds
51 from the beginning of the period. In order to implement this behavior,
52 every time the task wakes up, the scheduler computes a "scheduling deadline"
53 consistent with the guarantee (using the CBS[2,3] algorithm). Tasks are then
54 scheduled using EDF[1] on these scheduling deadlines (the task with the
55 earliest scheduling deadline is selected for execution). Notice that the
56 task actually receives "runtime" time units within "deadline" if a proper
57 "admission control" strategy (see Section "4. Bandwidth management") is used
58 (clearly, if the system is overloaded this guarantee cannot be respected).
59
60 Summing up, the CBS[2,3] algorithm assigns scheduling deadlines to tasks so
61 that each task runs for at most its runtime every period, avoiding any
62 interference between different tasks (bandwidth isolation), while the EDF[1]
63 algorithm selects the task with the earliest scheduling deadline as the one
64 to be executed next. Thanks to this feature, tasks that do not strictly comply
65 with the "traditional" real-time task model (see Section 3) can effectively
66 use the new policy.
67
68 In more details, the CBS algorithm assigns scheduling deadlines to
69 tasks in the following way:
70
71 - Each SCHED_DEADLINE task is characterized by the "runtime",
72 "deadline", and "period" parameters;
73
74 - The state of the task is described by a "scheduling deadline", and
75 a "remaining runtime". These two parameters are initially set to 0;
76
77 - When a SCHED_DEADLINE task wakes up (becomes ready for execution),
78 the scheduler checks if
79
80 remaining runtime runtime
81 ---------------------------------- > ---------
82 scheduling deadline - current time period
83
84 then, if the scheduling deadline is smaller than the current time, or
85 this condition is verified, the scheduling deadline and the
86 remaining runtime are re-initialized as
87
88 scheduling deadline = current time + deadline
89 remaining runtime = runtime
90
91 otherwise, the scheduling deadline and the remaining runtime are
92 left unchanged;
93
94 - When a SCHED_DEADLINE task executes for an amount of time t, its
95 remaining runtime is decreased as
96
97 remaining runtime = remaining runtime - t
98
99 (technically, the runtime is decreased at every tick, or when the
100 task is descheduled / preempted);
101
102 - When the remaining runtime becomes less or equal than 0, the task is
103 said to be "throttled" (also known as "depleted" in real-time literature)
104 and cannot be scheduled until its scheduling deadline. The "replenishment
105 time" for this task (see next item) is set to be equal to the current
106 value of the scheduling deadline;
107
108 - When the current time is equal to the replenishment time of a
109 throttled task, the scheduling deadline and the remaining runtime are
110 updated as
111
112 scheduling deadline = scheduling deadline + period
113 remaining runtime = remaining runtime + runtime
114
115
116 3. Scheduling Real-Time Tasks
117 =============================
118
119 * BIG FAT WARNING ******************************************************
120 *
121 * This section contains a (not-thorough) summary on classical deadline
122 * scheduling theory, and how it applies to SCHED_DEADLINE.
123 * The reader can "safely" skip to Section 4 if only interested in seeing
124 * how the scheduling policy can be used. Anyway, we strongly recommend
125 * to come back here and continue reading (once the urge for testing is
126 * satisfied :P) to be sure of fully understanding all technical details.
127 ************************************************************************
128
129 There are no limitations on what kind of task can exploit this new
130 scheduling discipline, even if it must be said that it is particularly
131 suited for periodic or sporadic real-time tasks that need guarantees on their
132 timing behavior, e.g., multimedia, streaming, control applications, etc.
133
134 3.1 Definitions
135 ------------------------
136
137 A typical real-time task is composed of a repetition of computation phases
138 (task instances, or jobs) which are activated on a periodic or sporadic
139 fashion.
140 Each job J_j (where J_j is the j^th job of the task) is characterized by an
141 arrival time r_j (the time when the job starts), an amount of computation
142 time c_j needed to finish the job, and a job absolute deadline d_j, which
143 is the time within which the job should be finished. The maximum execution
144 time max{c_j} is called "Worst Case Execution Time" (WCET) for the task.
145 A real-time task can be periodic with period P if r_{j+1} = r_j + P, or
146 sporadic with minimum inter-arrival time P is r_{j+1} >= r_j + P. Finally,
147 d_j = r_j + D, where D is the task's relative deadline.
148 Summing up, a real-time task can be described as
149 Task = (WCET, D, P)
150
151 The utilization of a real-time task is defined as the ratio between its
152 WCET and its period (or minimum inter-arrival time), and represents
153 the fraction of CPU time needed to execute the task.
154
155 If the total utilization U=sum(WCET_i/P_i) is larger than M (with M equal
156 to the number of CPUs), then the scheduler is unable to respect all the
157 deadlines.
158 Note that total utilization is defined as the sum of the utilizations
159 WCET_i/P_i over all the real-time tasks in the system. When considering
160 multiple real-time tasks, the parameters of the i-th task are indicated
161 with the "_i" suffix.
162 Moreover, if the total utilization is larger than M, then we risk starving
163 non- real-time tasks by real-time tasks.
164 If, instead, the total utilization is smaller than M, then non real-time
165 tasks will not be starved and the system might be able to respect all the
166 deadlines.
167 As a matter of fact, in this case it is possible to provide an upper bound
168 for tardiness (defined as the maximum between 0 and the difference
169 between the finishing time of a job and its absolute deadline).
170 More precisely, it can be proven that using a global EDF scheduler the
171 maximum tardiness of each task is smaller or equal than
172 ((M − 1) · WCET_max − WCET_min)/(M − (M − 2) · U_max) + WCET_max
173 where WCET_max = max{WCET_i} is the maximum WCET, WCET_min=min{WCET_i}
174 is the minimum WCET, and U_max = max{WCET_i/P_i} is the maximum
175 utilization[12].
176
177 3.2 Schedulability Analysis for Uniprocessor Systems
178 ------------------------
179
180 If M=1 (uniprocessor system), or in case of partitioned scheduling (each
181 real-time task is statically assigned to one and only one CPU), it is
182 possible to formally check if all the deadlines are respected.
183 If D_i = P_i for all tasks, then EDF is able to respect all the deadlines
184 of all the tasks executing on a CPU if and only if the total utilization
185 of the tasks running on such a CPU is smaller or equal than 1.
186 If D_i != P_i for some task, then it is possible to define the density of
187 a task as WCET_i/min{D_i,P_i}, and EDF is able to respect all the deadlines
188 of all the tasks running on a CPU if the sum of the densities of the tasks
189 running on such a CPU is smaller or equal than 1:
190 sum(WCET_i / min{D_i, P_i}) <= 1
191 It is important to notice that this condition is only sufficient, and not
192 necessary: there are task sets that are schedulable, but do not respect the
193 condition. For example, consider the task set {Task_1,Task_2} composed by
194 Task_1=(50ms,50ms,100ms) and Task_2=(10ms,100ms,100ms).
195 EDF is clearly able to schedule the two tasks without missing any deadline
196 (Task_1 is scheduled as soon as it is released, and finishes just in time
197 to respect its deadline; Task_2 is scheduled immediately after Task_1, hence
198 its response time cannot be larger than 50ms + 10ms = 60ms) even if
199 50 / min{50,100} + 10 / min{100, 100} = 50 / 50 + 10 / 100 = 1.1
200 Of course it is possible to test the exact schedulability of tasks with
201 D_i != P_i (checking a condition that is both sufficient and necessary),
202 but this cannot be done by comparing the total utilization or density with
203 a constant. Instead, the so called "processor demand" approach can be used,
204 computing the total amount of CPU time h(t) needed by all the tasks to
205 respect all of their deadlines in a time interval of size t, and comparing
206 such a time with the interval size t. If h(t) is smaller than t (that is,
207 the amount of time needed by the tasks in a time interval of size t is
208 smaller than the size of the interval) for all the possible values of t, then
209 EDF is able to schedule the tasks respecting all of their deadlines. Since
210 performing this check for all possible values of t is impossible, it has been
211 proven[4,5,6] that it is sufficient to perform the test for values of t
212 between 0 and a maximum value L. The cited papers contain all of the
213 mathematical details and explain how to compute h(t) and L.
214 In any case, this kind of analysis is too complex as well as too
215 time-consuming to be performed on-line. Hence, as explained in Section
216 4 Linux uses an admission test based on the tasks' utilizations.
217
218 3.3 Schedulability Analysis for Multiprocessor Systems
219 ------------------------
220
221 On multiprocessor systems with global EDF scheduling (non partitioned
222 systems), a sufficient test for schedulability can not be based on the
223 utilizations or densities: it can be shown that even if D_i = P_i task
224 sets with utilizations slightly larger than 1 can miss deadlines regardless
225 of the number of CPUs.
226
227 Consider a set {Task_1,...Task_{M+1}} of M+1 tasks on a system with M
228 CPUs, with the first task Task_1=(P,P,P) having period, relative deadline
229 and WCET equal to P. The remaining M tasks Task_i=(e,P-1,P-1) have an
230 arbitrarily small worst case execution time (indicated as "e" here) and a
231 period smaller than the one of the first task. Hence, if all the tasks
232 activate at the same time t, global EDF schedules these M tasks first
233 (because their absolute deadlines are equal to t + P - 1, hence they are
234 smaller than the absolute deadline of Task_1, which is t + P). As a
235 result, Task_1 can be scheduled only at time t + e, and will finish at
236 time t + e + P, after its absolute deadline. The total utilization of the
237 task set is U = M · e / (P - 1) + P / P = M · e / (P - 1) + 1, and for small
238 values of e this can become very close to 1. This is known as "Dhall's
239 effect"[7]. Note: the example in the original paper by Dhall has been
240 slightly simplified here (for example, Dhall more correctly computed
241 lim_{e->0}U).
242
243 More complex schedulability tests for global EDF have been developed in
244 real-time literature[8,9], but they are not based on a simple comparison
245 between total utilization (or density) and a fixed constant. If all tasks
246 have D_i = P_i, a sufficient schedulability condition can be expressed in
247 a simple way:
248 sum(WCET_i / P_i) <= M - (M - 1) · U_max
249 where U_max = max{WCET_i / P_i}[10]. Notice that for U_max = 1,
250 M - (M - 1) · U_max becomes M - M + 1 = 1 and this schedulability condition
251 just confirms the Dhall's effect. A more complete survey of the literature
252 about schedulability tests for multi-processor real-time scheduling can be
253 found in [11].
254
255 As seen, enforcing that the total utilization is smaller than M does not
256 guarantee that global EDF schedules the tasks without missing any deadline
257 (in other words, global EDF is not an optimal scheduling algorithm). However,
258 a total utilization smaller than M is enough to guarantee that non real-time
259 tasks are not starved and that the tardiness of real-time tasks has an upper
260 bound[12] (as previously noted). Different bounds on the maximum tardiness
261 experienced by real-time tasks have been developed in various papers[13,14],
262 but the theoretical result that is important for SCHED_DEADLINE is that if
263 the total utilization is smaller or equal than M then the response times of
264 the tasks are limited.
265
266 3.4 Relationship with SCHED_DEADLINE Parameters
267 ------------------------
268
269 Finally, it is important to understand the relationship between the
270 SCHED_DEADLINE scheduling parameters described in Section 2 (runtime,
271 deadline and period) and the real-time task parameters (WCET, D, P)
272 described in this section. Note that the tasks' temporal constraints are
273 represented by its absolute deadlines d_j = r_j + D described above, while
274 SCHED_DEADLINE schedules the tasks according to scheduling deadlines (see
275 Section 2).
276 If an admission test is used to guarantee that the scheduling deadlines
277 are respected, then SCHED_DEADLINE can be used to schedule real-time tasks
278 guaranteeing that all the jobs' deadlines of a task are respected.
279 In order to do this, a task must be scheduled by setting:
280
281 - runtime >= WCET
282 - deadline = D
283 - period <= P
284
285 IOW, if runtime >= WCET and if period is <= P, then the scheduling deadlines
286 and the absolute deadlines (d_j) coincide, so a proper admission control
287 allows to respect the jobs' absolute deadlines for this task (this is what is
288 called "hard schedulability property" and is an extension of Lemma 1 of [2]).
289 Notice that if runtime > deadline the admission control will surely reject
290 this task, as it is not possible to respect its temporal constraints.
291
292 References:
293 1 - C. L. Liu and J. W. Layland. Scheduling algorithms for multiprogram-
294 ming in a hard-real-time environment. Journal of the Association for
295 Computing Machinery, 20(1), 1973.
296 2 - L. Abeni , G. Buttazzo. Integrating Multimedia Applications in Hard
297 Real-Time Systems. Proceedings of the 19th IEEE Real-time Systems
298 Symposium, 1998. http://retis.sssup.it/~giorgio/paps/1998/rtss98-cbs.pdf
299 3 - L. Abeni. Server Mechanisms for Multimedia Applications. ReTiS Lab
300 Technical Report. http://disi.unitn.it/~abeni/tr-98-01.pdf
301 4 - J. Y. Leung and M.L. Merril. A Note on Preemptive Scheduling of
302 Periodic, Real-Time Tasks. Information Processing Letters, vol. 11,
303 no. 3, pp. 115-118, 1980.
304 5 - S. K. Baruah, A. K. Mok and L. E. Rosier. Preemptively Scheduling
305 Hard-Real-Time Sporadic Tasks on One Processor. Proceedings of the
306 11th IEEE Real-time Systems Symposium, 1990.
307 6 - S. K. Baruah, L. E. Rosier and R. R. Howell. Algorithms and Complexity
308 Concerning the Preemptive Scheduling of Periodic Real-Time tasks on
309 One Processor. Real-Time Systems Journal, vol. 4, no. 2, pp 301-324,
310 1990.
311 7 - S. J. Dhall and C. L. Liu. On a real-time scheduling problem. Operations
312 research, vol. 26, no. 1, pp 127-140, 1978.
313 8 - T. Baker. Multiprocessor EDF and Deadline Monotonic Schedulability
314 Analysis. Proceedings of the 24th IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium, 2003.
315 9 - T. Baker. An Analysis of EDF Schedulability on a Multiprocessor.
316 IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, vol. 16, no. 8,
317 pp 760-768, 2005.
318 10 - J. Goossens, S. Funk and S. Baruah, Priority-Driven Scheduling of
319 Periodic Task Systems on Multiprocessors. Real-Time Systems Journal,
320 vol. 25, no. 2–3, pp. 187–205, 2003.
321 11 - R. Davis and A. Burns. A Survey of Hard Real-Time Scheduling for
322 Multiprocessor Systems. ACM Computing Surveys, vol. 43, no. 4, 2011.
323 http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~robdavis/papers/MPSurveyv5.0.pdf
324 12 - U. C. Devi and J. H. Anderson. Tardiness Bounds under Global EDF
325 Scheduling on a Multiprocessor. Real-Time Systems Journal, vol. 32,
326 no. 2, pp 133-189, 2008.
327 13 - P. Valente and G. Lipari. An Upper Bound to the Lateness of Soft
328 Real-Time Tasks Scheduled by EDF on Multiprocessors. Proceedings of
329 the 26th IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium, 2005.
330 14 - J. Erickson, U. Devi and S. Baruah. Improved tardiness bounds for
331 Global EDF. Proceedings of the 22nd Euromicro Conference on
332 Real-Time Systems, 2010.
333
334
335 4. Bandwidth management
336 =======================
337
338 As previously mentioned, in order for -deadline scheduling to be
339 effective and useful (that is, to be able to provide "runtime" time units
340 within "deadline"), it is important to have some method to keep the allocation
341 of the available fractions of CPU time to the various tasks under control.
342 This is usually called "admission control" and if it is not performed, then
343 no guarantee can be given on the actual scheduling of the -deadline tasks.
344
345 As already stated in Section 3, a necessary condition to be respected to
346 correctly schedule a set of real-time tasks is that the total utilization
347 is smaller than M. When talking about -deadline tasks, this requires that
348 the sum of the ratio between runtime and period for all tasks is smaller
349 than M. Notice that the ratio runtime/period is equivalent to the utilization
350 of a "traditional" real-time task, and is also often referred to as
351 "bandwidth".
352 The interface used to control the CPU bandwidth that can be allocated
353 to -deadline tasks is similar to the one already used for -rt
354 tasks with real-time group scheduling (a.k.a. RT-throttling - see
355 Documentation/scheduler/sched-rt-group.txt), and is based on readable/
356 writable control files located in procfs (for system wide settings).
357 Notice that per-group settings (controlled through cgroupfs) are still not
358 defined for -deadline tasks, because more discussion is needed in order to
359 figure out how we want to manage SCHED_DEADLINE bandwidth at the task group
360 level.
361
362 A main difference between deadline bandwidth management and RT-throttling
363 is that -deadline tasks have bandwidth on their own (while -rt ones don't!),
364 and thus we don't need a higher level throttling mechanism to enforce the
365 desired bandwidth. In other words, this means that interface parameters are
366 only used at admission control time (i.e., when the user calls
367 sched_setattr()). Scheduling is then performed considering actual tasks'
368 parameters, so that CPU bandwidth is allocated to SCHED_DEADLINE tasks
369 respecting their needs in terms of granularity. Therefore, using this simple
370 interface we can put a cap on total utilization of -deadline tasks (i.e.,
371 \Sum (runtime_i / period_i) < global_dl_utilization_cap).
372
373 4.1 System wide settings
374 ------------------------
375
376 The system wide settings are configured under the /proc virtual file system.
377
378 For now the -rt knobs are used for -deadline admission control and the
379 -deadline runtime is accounted against the -rt runtime. We realize that this
380 isn't entirely desirable; however, it is better to have a small interface for
381 now, and be able to change it easily later. The ideal situation (see 5.) is to
382 run -rt tasks from a -deadline server; in which case the -rt bandwidth is a
383 direct subset of dl_bw.
384
385 This means that, for a root_domain comprising M CPUs, -deadline tasks
386 can be created while the sum of their bandwidths stays below:
387
388 M * (sched_rt_runtime_us / sched_rt_period_us)
389
390 It is also possible to disable this bandwidth management logic, and
391 be thus free of oversubscribing the system up to any arbitrary level.
392 This is done by writing -1 in /proc/sys/kernel/sched_rt_runtime_us.
393
394
395 4.2 Task interface
396 ------------------
397
398 Specifying a periodic/sporadic task that executes for a given amount of
399 runtime at each instance, and that is scheduled according to the urgency of
400 its own timing constraints needs, in general, a way of declaring:
401 - a (maximum/typical) instance execution time,
402 - a minimum interval between consecutive instances,
403 - a time constraint by which each instance must be completed.
404
405 Therefore:
406 * a new struct sched_attr, containing all the necessary fields is
407 provided;
408 * the new scheduling related syscalls that manipulate it, i.e.,
409 sched_setattr() and sched_getattr() are implemented.
410
411 For debugging purposes, the leftover runtime and absolute deadline of a
412 SCHED_DEADLINE task can be retrieved through /proc/<pid>/sched (entries
413 dl.runtime and dl.deadline, both values in ns). A programmatic way to
414 retrieve these values from production code is under discussion.
415
416
417 4.3 Default behavior
418 ---------------------
419
420 The default value for SCHED_DEADLINE bandwidth is to have rt_runtime equal to
421 950000. With rt_period equal to 1000000, by default, it means that -deadline
422 tasks can use at most 95%, multiplied by the number of CPUs that compose the
423 root_domain, for each root_domain.
424 This means that non -deadline tasks will receive at least 5% of the CPU time,
425 and that -deadline tasks will receive their runtime with a guaranteed
426 worst-case delay respect to the "deadline" parameter. If "deadline" = "period"
427 and the cpuset mechanism is used to implement partitioned scheduling (see
428 Section 5), then this simple setting of the bandwidth management is able to
429 deterministically guarantee that -deadline tasks will receive their runtime
430 in a period.
431
432 Finally, notice that in order not to jeopardize the admission control a
433 -deadline task cannot fork.
434
435
436 4.4 Behavior of sched_yield()
437 -----------------------------
438
439 When a SCHED_DEADLINE task calls sched_yield(), it gives up its
440 remaining runtime and is immediately throttled, until the next
441 period, when its runtime will be replenished (a special flag
442 dl_yielded is set and used to handle correctly throttling and runtime
443 replenishment after a call to sched_yield()).
444
445 This behavior of sched_yield() allows the task to wake-up exactly at
446 the beginning of the next period. Also, this may be useful in the
447 future with bandwidth reclaiming mechanisms, where sched_yield() will
448 make the leftoever runtime available for reclamation by other
449 SCHED_DEADLINE tasks.
450
451
452 5. Tasks CPU affinity
453 =====================
454
455 -deadline tasks cannot have an affinity mask smaller that the entire
456 root_domain they are created on. However, affinities can be specified
457 through the cpuset facility (Documentation/cgroup-v1/cpusets.txt).
458
459 5.1 SCHED_DEADLINE and cpusets HOWTO
460 ------------------------------------
461
462 An example of a simple configuration (pin a -deadline task to CPU0)
463 follows (rt-app is used to create a -deadline task).
464
465 mkdir /dev/cpuset
466 mount -t cgroup -o cpuset cpuset /dev/cpuset
467 cd /dev/cpuset
468 mkdir cpu0
469 echo 0 > cpu0/cpuset.cpus
470 echo 0 > cpu0/cpuset.mems
471 echo 1 > cpuset.cpu_exclusive
472 echo 0 > cpuset.sched_load_balance
473 echo 1 > cpu0/cpuset.cpu_exclusive
474 echo 1 > cpu0/cpuset.mem_exclusive
475 echo $$ > cpu0/tasks
476 rt-app -t 100000:10000:d:0 -D5 (it is now actually superfluous to specify
477 task affinity)
478
479 6. Future plans
480 ===============
481
482 Still missing:
483
484 - programmatic way to retrieve current runtime and absolute deadline
485 - refinements to deadline inheritance, especially regarding the possibility
486 of retaining bandwidth isolation among non-interacting tasks. This is
487 being studied from both theoretical and practical points of view, and
488 hopefully we should be able to produce some demonstrative code soon;
489 - (c)group based bandwidth management, and maybe scheduling;
490 - access control for non-root users (and related security concerns to
491 address), which is the best way to allow unprivileged use of the mechanisms
492 and how to prevent non-root users "cheat" the system?
493
494 As already discussed, we are planning also to merge this work with the EDF
495 throttling patches [https://lkml.org/lkml/2010/2/23/239] but we still are in
496 the preliminary phases of the merge and we really seek feedback that would
497 help us decide on the direction it should take.
498
499 Appendix A. Test suite
500 ======================
501
502 The SCHED_DEADLINE policy can be easily tested using two applications that
503 are part of a wider Linux Scheduler validation suite. The suite is
504 available as a GitHub repository: https://github.com/scheduler-tools.
505
506 The first testing application is called rt-app and can be used to
507 start multiple threads with specific parameters. rt-app supports
508 SCHED_{OTHER,FIFO,RR,DEADLINE} scheduling policies and their related
509 parameters (e.g., niceness, priority, runtime/deadline/period). rt-app
510 is a valuable tool, as it can be used to synthetically recreate certain
511 workloads (maybe mimicking real use-cases) and evaluate how the scheduler
512 behaves under such workloads. In this way, results are easily reproducible.
513 rt-app is available at: https://github.com/scheduler-tools/rt-app.
514
515 Thread parameters can be specified from the command line, with something like
516 this:
517
518 # rt-app -t 100000:10000:d -t 150000:20000:f:10 -D5
519
520 The above creates 2 threads. The first one, scheduled by SCHED_DEADLINE,
521 executes for 10ms every 100ms. The second one, scheduled at SCHED_FIFO
522 priority 10, executes for 20ms every 150ms. The test will run for a total
523 of 5 seconds.
524
525 More interestingly, configurations can be described with a json file that
526 can be passed as input to rt-app with something like this:
527
528 # rt-app my_config.json
529
530 The parameters that can be specified with the second method are a superset
531 of the command line options. Please refer to rt-app documentation for more
532 details (<rt-app-sources>/doc/*.json).
533
534 The second testing application is a modification of schedtool, called
535 schedtool-dl, which can be used to setup SCHED_DEADLINE parameters for a
536 certain pid/application. schedtool-dl is available at:
537 https://github.com/scheduler-tools/schedtool-dl.git.
538
539 The usage is straightforward:
540
541 # schedtool -E -t 10000000:100000000 -e ./my_cpuhog_app
542
543 With this, my_cpuhog_app is put to run inside a SCHED_DEADLINE reservation
544 of 10ms every 100ms (note that parameters are expressed in microseconds).
545 You can also use schedtool to create a reservation for an already running
546 application, given that you know its pid:
547
548 # schedtool -E -t 10000000:100000000 my_app_pid
549
550 Appendix B. Minimal main()
551 ==========================
552
553 We provide in what follows a simple (ugly) self-contained code snippet
554 showing how SCHED_DEADLINE reservations can be created by a real-time
555 application developer.
556
557 #define _GNU_SOURCE
558 #include <unistd.h>
559 #include <stdio.h>
560 #include <stdlib.h>
561 #include <string.h>
562 #include <time.h>
563 #include <linux/unistd.h>
564 #include <linux/kernel.h>
565 #include <linux/types.h>
566 #include <sys/syscall.h>
567 #include <pthread.h>
568
569 #define gettid() syscall(__NR_gettid)
570
571 #define SCHED_DEADLINE 6
572
573 /* XXX use the proper syscall numbers */
574 #ifdef __x86_64__
575 #define __NR_sched_setattr 314
576 #define __NR_sched_getattr 315
577 #endif
578
579 #ifdef __i386__
580 #define __NR_sched_setattr 351
581 #define __NR_sched_getattr 352
582 #endif
583
584 #ifdef __arm__
585 #define __NR_sched_setattr 380
586 #define __NR_sched_getattr 381
587 #endif
588
589 static volatile int done;
590
591 struct sched_attr {
592 __u32 size;
593
594 __u32 sched_policy;
595 __u64 sched_flags;
596
597 /* SCHED_NORMAL, SCHED_BATCH */
598 __s32 sched_nice;
599
600 /* SCHED_FIFO, SCHED_RR */
601 __u32 sched_priority;
602
603 /* SCHED_DEADLINE (nsec) */
604 __u64 sched_runtime;
605 __u64 sched_deadline;
606 __u64 sched_period;
607 };
608
609 int sched_setattr(pid_t pid,
610 const struct sched_attr *attr,
611 unsigned int flags)
612 {
613 return syscall(__NR_sched_setattr, pid, attr, flags);
614 }
615
616 int sched_getattr(pid_t pid,
617 struct sched_attr *attr,
618 unsigned int size,
619 unsigned int flags)
620 {
621 return syscall(__NR_sched_getattr, pid, attr, size, flags);
622 }
623
624 void *run_deadline(void *data)
625 {
626 struct sched_attr attr;
627 int x = 0;
628 int ret;
629 unsigned int flags = 0;
630
631 printf("deadline thread started [%ld]\n", gettid());
632
633 attr.size = sizeof(attr);
634 attr.sched_flags = 0;
635 attr.sched_nice = 0;
636 attr.sched_priority = 0;
637
638 /* This creates a 10ms/30ms reservation */
639 attr.sched_policy = SCHED_DEADLINE;
640 attr.sched_runtime = 10 * 1000 * 1000;
641 attr.sched_period = attr.sched_deadline = 30 * 1000 * 1000;
642
643 ret = sched_setattr(0, &attr, flags);
644 if (ret < 0) {
645 done = 0;
646 perror("sched_setattr");
647 exit(-1);
648 }
649
650 while (!done) {
651 x++;
652 }
653
654 printf("deadline thread dies [%ld]\n", gettid());
655 return NULL;
656 }
657
658 int main (int argc, char **argv)
659 {
660 pthread_t thread;
661
662 printf("main thread [%ld]\n", gettid());
663
664 pthread_create(&thread, NULL, run_deadline, NULL);
665
666 sleep(10);
667
668 done = 1;
669 pthread_join(thread, NULL);
670
671 printf("main dies [%ld]\n", gettid());
672 return 0;
673 }