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Shrikanth Hegde 5d86d542f6 sched/fair: Remove nohz.nr_cpus and use weight of cpumask instead
nohz.nr_cpus was observed as contended cacheline when running
enterprise workload on large systems.

Fundamental scalability challenge with nohz.idle_cpus_mask
and nohz.nr_cpus is the following:

 (1) nohz_balancer_kick() observes (reads) nohz.nr_cpus
     (or nohz.idle_cpu_mask) and nohz.has_blocked to  see whether there's
     any nohz balancing work to do, in every scheduler tick.

 (2) nohz_balance_enter_idle() and nohz_balance_exit_idle()
     (through nohz_balancer_kick() via sched_tick()) modify (write)
     nohz.nr_cpus (and/or nohz.idle_cpu_mask) and nohz.has_blocked.

The characteristic frequencies are the following:

 (1) nohz_balancer_kick() happens at scheduler (busy)tick frequency
     on CPU(which has not gone idle). This is a relatively constant
     frequency  in the ~1 kHz range or lower.

 (2) happens at idle enter/exit frequency on every CPU that goes to idle.
     This is workload dependent, but can easily be hundreds of kHz for
     IO-bound loads and high CPU counts. Ie. can be orders of magnitude
     higher than (1), in which case a cachemiss at every invocation of (1)
     is almost inevitable. idle exit will trigger (1) on the CPU
     which is coming out of idle.

There's two types of costs from these functions:

 (A) scheduler tick cost via (1): this happens on busy CPUs too, and is
     thus a primary scalability cost. But the rate here is constant and
     typically much lower than (B), hence the absolute benefit to workload
     scalability will be lower as well.

 (B) idle cost via (2): going-to-idle and coming-from-idle costs are
     secondary concerns, because they impact power efficiency more than
     they impact scalability. But in terms of absolute cost this scales
     up with nr_cpus as well, and a much faster rate, and thus may also
     approach and negatively impact system limits like
     memory bus/fabric bandwidth.

Note that nohz.idle_cpus_mask and nohz.nr_cpus may appear to reside in the
same cacheline, however under CONFIG_CPUMASK_OFFSTACK=y the backing storage
for nohz.idle_cpus_mask will be elsewhere. With CPUMASK_OFFSTACK=n,
the nohz.idle_cpus_mask and rest of nohz fields are in different cachelines
under typical NR_CPUS=512/2048. This implies two separate cachelines
being dirtied upon idle entry / exit.

nohz.nr_cpus can be derived from the mask itself. Its usage doesn't warrant
a functionally correct value. This means one less cacheline being dirtied in
idle entry/exit path which helps to save some bus bandwidth w.r.t to those
nohz functions(approx 50%). This in turn helps to improve enterprise
workload throughput.

On system with 480 CPUs, running "hackbench 40 process 10000 loops"
(Avg of 3 runs)
baseline:
     0.81%  hackbench          [k] nohz_balance_exit_idle
     0.21%  hackbench          [k] nohz_balancer_kick
     0.09%  swapper            [k] nohz_run_idle_balance

With patch:
     0.35%  hackbench          [k] nohz_balance_exit_idle
     0.09%  hackbench          [k] nohz_balancer_kick
     0.07%  swapper            [k] nohz_run_idle_balance

[Ingo Molnar: scalability analysis changlog]

Reviewed-and-tested-by: K Prateek Nayak <kprateek.nayak@amd.com>
Signed-off-by: Shrikanth Hegde <sshegde@linux.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@infradead.org>
Reviewed-by: Valentin Schneider <vschneid@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: Vincent Guittot <vincent.guittot@linaro.org>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260115073524.376643-4-sshegde@linux.ibm.com
History 2026-01-15 22:41:27 +01:00
arch Misc fixes: 2025-12-14 06:10:35 +12:00
block block-6.19-20251211 2025-12-12 22:04:18 +12:00
certs sign-file,extract-cert: use pkcs11 provider for OPENSSL MAJOR >= 3 2024-09-20 19:52:48 +03:00
crypto Networking changes for 6.19. 2025-12-03 17:24:33 -08:00
Documentation Misc fixes: 2025-12-14 06:07:09 +12:00
drivers SCSI misc on 20251214 2025-12-14 15:35:35 +12:00
fs We have a patch that adds an initial set of tracepoints to the MDS 2025-12-14 15:24:10 +12:00
include sched/fair: Separate se->vlag from se->vprot 2025-12-15 07:52:44 +01:00
init Significant patch series in this pull request: 2025-12-06 14:01:20 -08:00
io_uring io_uring-6.19-20251211 2025-12-12 22:01:32 +12:00
ipc Significant patch series in this pull request: 2025-12-06 14:01:20 -08:00
kernel sched/fair: Remove nohz.nr_cpus and use weight of cpumask instead 2026-01-15 22:41:27 +01:00
lib Miscellaneous fixes: 2025-12-14 06:04:16 +12:00
LICENSES LICENSES: Add modern form of the LGPL-2.1 tags to the usage guide section 2025-10-22 07:58:19 +02:00
mm There are no significant series in this small merge. Please see the 2025-12-13 20:55:12 +12:00
net We have a patch that adds an initial set of tracepoints to the MDS 2025-12-14 15:24:10 +12:00
rust USB/Thunderbolt changes for 6.19-rc1 2025-12-06 18:42:12 -08:00
samples USB/Thunderbolt changes for 6.19-rc1 2025-12-06 18:42:12 -08:00
scripts There are no significant series in this small merge. Please see the 2025-12-13 20:55:12 +12:00
security Trivial optimization. 2025-12-14 15:21:02 +12:00
sound soundwire updates for 6.19 2025-12-13 16:26:55 +12:00
tools Futex changes for v6.19: 2025-12-10 17:21:30 +09:00
usr initramfs: add gen_init_cpio to hostprogs unconditionally 2025-11-26 21:55:40 +01:00
virt soc: driver updates for 6.19 2025-12-05 17:29:04 -08:00
.clang-format Significant patch series in this merge are as follows: 2025-12-05 13:52:43 -08:00
.clippy.toml rust: clean Rust 1.88.0's warning about clippy::disallowed_macros configuration 2025-05-07 00:11:47 +02:00
.cocciconfig scripts: add Linux .cocciconfig for coccinelle 2016-07-22 12:13:39 +02:00
.editorconfig .editorconfig: remove trim_trailing_whitespace option 2024-06-13 16:47:52 +02:00
.get_maintainer.ignore MAINTAINERS: remove Alyssa Rosenzweig 2025-09-18 21:17:31 +02:00
.gitattributes .gitattributes: set diff driver for Rust source code files 2023-05-31 17:48:25 +02:00
.gitignore rust: kbuild: add proc macro library support 2025-11-24 17:15:36 +01:00
.mailmap Significant patch series in this pull request: 2025-12-06 14:01:20 -08:00
.pylintrc docs: Move the python libraries to tools/lib/python 2025-11-18 09:22:40 -07:00
.rustfmt.toml rust: add .rustfmt.toml 2022-09-28 09:02:20 +02:00
COPYING COPYING: state that all contributions really are covered by this file 2020-02-10 13:32:20 -08:00
CREDITS phy-for-6.19 2025-12-09 06:31:47 +09:00
Kbuild sched: Make migrate_{en,dis}able() inline 2025-09-25 09:57:16 +02:00
Kconfig io_uring: Rename KConfig to Kconfig 2025-02-19 14:53:27 -07:00
MAINTAINERS Patch series in this pull request: 2025-12-13 20:35:41 +12:00
Makefile Linux 6.19-rc1 2025-12-14 16:05:07 +12:00
README README: restructure with role-based documentation and guidelines 2025-11-29 08:40:33 -07:00

Linux kernel
============

The Linux kernel is the core of any Linux operating system. It manages hardware,
system resources, and provides the fundamental services for all other software.

Quick Start
-----------

* Report a bug: See Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-issues.rst
* Get the latest kernel: https://kernel.org
* Build the kernel: See Documentation/admin-guide/quickly-build-trimmed-linux.rst
* Join the community: https://lore.kernel.org/

Essential Documentation
-----------------------

All users should be familiar with:

* Building requirements: Documentation/process/changes.rst
* Code of Conduct: Documentation/process/code-of-conduct.rst
* License: See COPYING

Documentation can be built with make htmldocs or viewed online at:
https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/


Who Are You?
============

Find your role below:

* New Kernel Developer - Getting started with kernel development
* Academic Researcher - Studying kernel internals and architecture
* Security Expert - Hardening and vulnerability analysis
* Backport/Maintenance Engineer - Maintaining stable kernels
* System Administrator - Configuring and troubleshooting
* Maintainer - Leading subsystems and reviewing patches
* Hardware Vendor - Writing drivers for new hardware
* Distribution Maintainer - Packaging kernels for distros


For Specific Users
==================

New Kernel Developer
--------------------

Welcome! Start your kernel development journey here:

* Getting Started: Documentation/process/development-process.rst
* Your First Patch: Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst
* Coding Style: Documentation/process/coding-style.rst
* Build System: Documentation/kbuild/index.rst
* Development Tools: Documentation/dev-tools/index.rst
* Kernel Hacking Guide: Documentation/kernel-hacking/hacking.rst
* Core APIs: Documentation/core-api/index.rst

Academic Researcher
-------------------

Explore the kernel's architecture and internals:

* Researcher Guidelines: Documentation/process/researcher-guidelines.rst
* Memory Management: Documentation/mm/index.rst
* Scheduler: Documentation/scheduler/index.rst
* Networking Stack: Documentation/networking/index.rst
* Filesystems: Documentation/filesystems/index.rst
* RCU (Read-Copy Update): Documentation/RCU/index.rst
* Locking Primitives: Documentation/locking/index.rst
* Power Management: Documentation/power/index.rst

Security Expert
---------------

Security documentation and hardening guides:

* Security Documentation: Documentation/security/index.rst
* LSM Development: Documentation/security/lsm-development.rst
* Self Protection: Documentation/security/self-protection.rst
* Reporting Vulnerabilities: Documentation/process/security-bugs.rst
* CVE Procedures: Documentation/process/cve.rst
* Embargoed Hardware Issues: Documentation/process/embargoed-hardware-issues.rst
* Security Features: Documentation/userspace-api/seccomp_filter.rst

Backport/Maintenance Engineer
-----------------------------

Maintain and stabilize kernel versions:

* Stable Kernel Rules: Documentation/process/stable-kernel-rules.rst
* Backporting Guide: Documentation/process/backporting.rst
* Applying Patches: Documentation/process/applying-patches.rst
* Subsystem Profile: Documentation/maintainer/maintainer-entry-profile.rst
* Git for Maintainers: Documentation/maintainer/configure-git.rst

System Administrator
--------------------

Configure, tune, and troubleshoot Linux systems:

* Admin Guide: Documentation/admin-guide/index.rst
* Kernel Parameters: Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.rst
* Sysctl Tuning: Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/index.rst
* Tracing/Debugging: Documentation/trace/index.rst
* Performance Security: Documentation/admin-guide/perf-security.rst
* Hardware Monitoring: Documentation/hwmon/index.rst

Maintainer
----------

Lead kernel subsystems and manage contributions:

* Maintainer Handbook: Documentation/maintainer/index.rst
* Pull Requests: Documentation/maintainer/pull-requests.rst
* Managing Patches: Documentation/maintainer/modifying-patches.rst
* Rebasing and Merging: Documentation/maintainer/rebasing-and-merging.rst
* Development Process: Documentation/process/maintainer-handbooks.rst
* Maintainer Entry Profile: Documentation/maintainer/maintainer-entry-profile.rst
* Git Configuration: Documentation/maintainer/configure-git.rst

Hardware Vendor
---------------

Write drivers and support new hardware:

* Driver API Guide: Documentation/driver-api/index.rst
* Driver Model: Documentation/driver-api/driver-model/driver.rst
* Device Drivers: Documentation/driver-api/infrastructure.rst
* Bus Types: Documentation/driver-api/driver-model/bus.rst
* Device Tree Bindings: Documentation/devicetree/bindings/
* Power Management: Documentation/driver-api/pm/index.rst
* DMA API: Documentation/core-api/dma-api.rst

Distribution Maintainer
-----------------------

Package and distribute the kernel:

* Stable Kernel Rules: Documentation/process/stable-kernel-rules.rst
* ABI Documentation: Documentation/ABI/README
* Kernel Configuration: Documentation/kbuild/kconfig.rst
* Module Signing: Documentation/admin-guide/module-signing.rst
* Kernel Parameters: Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.rst
* Tainted Kernels: Documentation/admin-guide/tainted-kernels.rst



Communication and Support
=========================

* Mailing Lists: https://lore.kernel.org/
* IRC: #kernelnewbies on irc.oftc.net
* Bugzilla: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/
* MAINTAINERS file: Lists subsystem maintainers and mailing lists
* Email Clients: Documentation/process/email-clients.rst