WARNING - OLD ARCHIVES

This is an archived copy of the Xen.org mailing list, which we have preserved to ensure that existing links to archives are not broken. The live archive, which contains the latest emails, can be found at http://lists.xen.org/
   
 
 
Xen 
 
Home Products Support Community News
 
   
 

xen-devel

[Xen-devel] Re: [RFC, PATCH 24/24] i386 Vmi no idle hz

To: Pavel Machek <pavel@xxxxxx>
Subject: [Xen-devel] Re: [RFC, PATCH 24/24] i386 Vmi no idle hz
From: Dan Hecht <dhecht@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 15:59:32 -0800
Cc: Zachary Amsden <zach@xxxxxxxxxx>, Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxx>, Xen-devel <xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Wim Coekaerts <wim.coekaerts@xxxxxxxxxx>, Chris Wright <chrisw@xxxxxxxx>, Joshua LeVasseur <jtl@xxxxxxxxxx>, Pratap Subrahmanyam <pratap@xxxxxxxxxx>, Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Jack Lo <jlo@xxxxxxxxxx>, Christopher Li <chrisl@xxxxxxxxxx>, Virtualization Mailing List <virtualization@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxx>, Anne Holler <anne@xxxxxxxxxx>, Jan Beulich <jbeulich@xxxxxxxxxx>, Jyothy Reddy <jreddy@xxxxxxxxxx>, Kip Macy <kmacy@xxxxxxxxxxx>, Ky Srinivasan <ksrinivasan@xxxxxxxxxx>, Leendert van Doorn <leendert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Dan Arai <arai@xxxxxxxxxx>
Delivery-date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 10:50:33 +0000
Envelope-to: www-data@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In-reply-to: <20060315233128.GD1919@xxxxxxxxxx>
List-help: <mailto:xen-devel-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=help>
List-id: Xen developer discussion <xen-devel.lists.xensource.com>
List-post: <mailto:xen-devel@lists.xensource.com>
List-subscribe: <http://lists.xensource.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xen-devel>, <mailto:xen-devel-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=subscribe>
List-unsubscribe: <http://lists.xensource.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xen-devel>, <mailto:xen-devel-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=unsubscribe>
References: <200603131817.k2DIHkMa005792@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> <20060315233128.GD1919@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sender: xen-devel-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
User-agent: Thunderbird 1.5 (X11/20051201)
Pavel Machek wrote:
Hi!

When a VCPU enters its idle loop, it disables its periodic
alarm and sets up a one shot alarm for the next time event.
That way, it does not become ready to run just to service
the periodic alarm interrupt. Instead, it can remain halted
until there is some real work pending for it.  This allows
the hypervisor to use the physical resources more
effectively since idle VCPUs will have lower overhead.

Does this NO_IDLE_HZ work only on VMI-enabled runs or globally? We are
trying to get NO_IDLE_HZ working to save some power on notebooks; how
is it related to this?


The NO_IDLE_HZ implementation provided here is enabled when the VMI-Timer device is used as the timer interrupt source. The VMI-Timer device is only present on paravirtual hardware.

However, the hooks introduced into the kernel (stop_hz_timer, restart_hz_timer) with these patches will be approximately the same (perhaps a subset) for implementing NO_IDLE_HZ on systems that use other interrupt sources.

Can you use NO_IDLE_HZ patches that are already floating around?


Certainly we plan to merge our NO_IDLE_HZ implementation with those patches once they are stabilized in the kernel. Presently, they seem to be too fast of a moving target to be worth merging at this point, though. Additionally, the VMI-Timer NO_IDLE_HZ implementation does not need all the machinery provided with the NO_IDLE_HZ patches that are floating around because the VMI-Timer code does not track time by counting interrupts. This leads to a fairly simplistic NO_IDLE_HZ implementation.

Dan

_______________________________________________
Xen-devel mailing list
Xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-devel

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>