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Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH] Add a timer mode that disables pending missed ticks



Hi Dan and Keir,

Attached is a patch that fixes some issues with the SYNC policy (no_missed_ticks_pending). I have not tried to make the change the minimal one, but, rather, just ported into the new code what I know to work well. The error for no_missed_ticks_pending goes from
over 3% to .03% with this change according to my testing.

Regards,
Dave

Dan Magenheimer wrote:

Hi Dave --

Did you get your correction ported?  If so, it would be nice to see this get 
into 3.1.3.

Note that I just did some very limited testing with timer_mode=2(=SYNC=no 
missed ticks pending)
on tip of xen-3.1-testing (64-bit Linux hv guest) and the worst error I've seen 
so far
is 0.012%.  But I haven't tried any exotic loads, just LTP.

Thanks,
Dan

-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Winchell [mailto:dwinchell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2007 12:33 PM
To: dan.magenheimer@xxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Keir Fraser; Shan, Haitao; xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; Dong,
Eddie; Jiang, Yunhong; Dave Winchell
Subject: Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH] Add a timer mode that disables pending
missed ticks


Dan,

I did some testing with the constant tsc offset SYNC method (now called
no_missed_ticks_pending)
and found the error to be very high, much larger than 1 %, as I recall. I have not had a chance to submit a correction. I will try to do it later
this week or the first week in January. My version of constant tsc
offset SYNC method
produces .02 % error, so I just need to port that into the current code.

The error you got for both of those kernels is what I would expect
for the default mode, delay_for_missed_ticks.

I'll let Keir answer on how to set the time mode.

Regards,
Dave

Dan Magenheimer wrote:

Anyone make measurements on the final patch?

I just ran a 64-bit RHEL5.1 pvm kernel and saw a loss of
about 0.2% with no load. This was xen-unstable tip today with no options specified. 32-bit was about 0.01%.
I think I missed something... how do I run the various
accounting choices and which ones are known to be appropriate for which kernels?
Thanks,
Dan



-----Original Message-----
From: xen-devel-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:xen-devel-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of
Keir Fraser
Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 4:57 AM
To: Dave Winchell
Cc: Shan, Haitao; xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; Dong, Eddie; Jiang,
Yunhong
Subject: Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH] Add a timer mode that
disables pending
missed ticks


Please take a look at xen-unstable changeset 16545.

-- Keir

On 26/11/07 20:57, "Dave Winchell"
<dwinchell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Keir,

The accuracy data I've collected for i/o loads for the
various time protocols follows. In addition, the data
for cpu loads is shown.

The loads labeled cpu and i/o-8 are on an 8 processor AMD box.
Two guests, red hat and sles 64 bit, 8 vcpu each.
The cpu load is usex -e36 on each guest.
(usex is available at http://people.redhat.com/anderson/usex.)
i/o load is 8 instances of dd if=/dev/hda6 of=/dev/null.

The loads labeled i/o-32 are 32 instances of dd.
Also, these are run on 4 cpu AMD box.
In addition, there is an idle rh-32bit guest.
All three guests are 8vcpu.

The loads labeled i/o-4/32 are the same as i/o-32
except that the redhat-64 guest has 4 instances of dd.

Date Duration Protocol sles, rhat error load

11/07 23 hrs 40 min ASYNC -4.96 sec, +4.42 sec -.006%, +.005% cpu
11/09 3 hrs 19 min ASYNC -.13 sec, +1.44 sec, -.001%, +.012% cpu

11/08 2 hrs 21 min SYNC -.80 sec, -.34 sec, -.009%, -.004% cpu
11/08 1 hr 25 min SYNC -.24 sec, -.26 sec, -.005%, -.005% cpu
11/12 65 hrs 40 min SYNC -18 sec, -8 sec, -.008%, -.003% cpu

11/08 28 min MIXED -.75 sec, -.67 sec -.045%, -.040% cpu
11/08 15 hrs 39 min MIXED -19. sec,-17.4 sec, -.034%, -.031% cpu


11/14 17 hrs 17 min ASYNC -6.1 sec,-55.7 sec, -.01%, -.09% i/o-8
11/15 2 hrs 44 min ASYNC -1.47 sec,-14.0 sec, -.015% -.14% i/o-8

11/13 15 hrs 38 min SYNC -9.7 sec,-12.3 sec, -.017%, -.022% i/o-8
11/14 48 min SYNC - .46 sec, - .48 sec, -.017%, -.018% i/o-8

11/14 4 hrs 2 min MIXED -2.9 sec, -4.15 sec, -.020%, -.029% i/o-8
11/20 16 hrs 2 min MIXED -13.4 sec,-18.1 sec, -.023%, -.031% i/o-8



11/21 28 min MIXED -2.01 sec, -.67 sec, -.12%, -.04% i/o-32
11/21 2 hrs 25 min SYNC -.96 sec, -.43 sec, -.011%, -.005% i/o-32
11/21 40 min ASYNC -2.43 sec, -2.77 sec -.10%, -.11% i/o-32

11/26 113 hrs 46 min MIXED -297. sec, 13. sec -.07%, .003% i/o-4/32
11/26 4 hrs 50 min SYNC -3.21 sec, 1.44 sec, -.017%, .01% i/o-4/32


Overhead measurements:

Progress in terms of number of passes through a fixed


system workload


on an 8 vcpu red hat with an 8 vcpu sles idle.
The workload was usex -b48.


ASYNC 167 min 145 passes .868 passes/min
SYNC 167 min 144 passes .862 passes/min
SYNC 1065 min 919 passes .863 passes/min
MIXED 221 min 196 passes .887 passes/min


Conclusions:

The only protocol which meets the .05% accuracy requirement for ntp
tracking under the loads
above is the SYNC protocol. The worst case accuracies for


SYNC, MIXED,


and ASYNC
are .022%, .12%, and .14%, respectively.

We could reduce the cost of the SYNC method by only


scheduling the extra


wakeups if a certain number
of ticks are missed.

Regards,
Dave

Keir Fraser wrote:



On 9/11/07 19:22, "Dave Winchell"


<dwinchell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



Since I had a high error (~.03%) for the ASYNC method a


couple of days ago,


I ran another ASYNC test. I think there may have been something
wrong with the code I used a couple of days ago for


ASYNC. It may have been


missing the immediate delivery of interrupt after context


switch in.


My results indicate that either SYNC or ASYNC give


acceptable accuracy,


each running consistently around or under .01%. MIXED has


a fairly high


error of
greater than .03%. Probably too close to .05% ntp


threshold for comfort.


I don't have an overnight run with SYNC. I plan to leave


SYNC running


over the weekend. If you'd rather I can leave MIXED


running instead.


It may be too early to pick the protocol and I can run


more overnight tests


next week.




I'm a bit worried about any unwanted side effects of the


SYNC+run_timer


approach -- e.g., whether timer wakeups will cause higher


system-wide CPU


contention. I find it easier to think through the


implications of ASYNC. I'm


surprised that MIXED loses time, and is less accurate than


ASYNC. Perhaps it


delivers more timer interrupts than the other approaches,


and each interrupt


event causes a small accumulated error?

Overall I would consider MIXED and ASYNC as favourites and


if the latter is


actually more accurate then I can simply revert the changeset that
implemented MIXED.

Perhaps rather than running more of the same workloads you


could try idle


VCPUs and I/O bound VCPUs (e.g., repeated large disc reads


to /dev/null)? We


don't have any data on workloads that aren't CPU bound, so


that's really an


obvious place to put any further effort imo.

-- Keir






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diff -r cfdbdca5b831 xen/arch/x86/hvm/vpt.c
--- a/xen/arch/x86/hvm/vpt.c    Thu Dec 06 15:36:07 2007 +0000
+++ b/xen/arch/x86/hvm/vpt.c    Fri Jan 04 17:58:16 2008 -0500
@@ -58,7 +58,7 @@ static void pt_process_missed_ticks(stru
 
     missed_ticks = missed_ticks / (s_time_t) pt->period + 1;
     if ( mode_is(pt->vcpu->domain, no_missed_ticks_pending) )
-        pt->do_not_freeze = !pt->pending_intr_nr;
+        pt->do_not_freeze = 1;
     else
         pt->pending_intr_nr += missed_ticks;
     pt->scheduled += missed_ticks * pt->period;
@@ -127,7 +127,12 @@ static void pt_timer_fn(void *data)
 
     pt_lock(pt);
 
-    pt->pending_intr_nr++;
+    if ( mode_is(pt->vcpu->domain, no_missed_ticks_pending) ) {
+        pt->pending_intr_nr = 1;
+       pt->do_not_freeze = 0;
+    }
+    else
+       pt->pending_intr_nr++;
 
     if ( !pt->one_shot )
     {
@@ -221,8 +226,6 @@ void pt_intr_post(struct vcpu *v, struct
         return;
     }
 
-    pt->do_not_freeze = 0;
-
     if ( pt->one_shot )
     {
         pt->enabled = 0;
@@ -235,6 +238,10 @@ void pt_intr_post(struct vcpu *v, struct
             pt->last_plt_gtime = hvm_get_guest_time(v);
             pt->pending_intr_nr = 0; /* 'collapse' all missed ticks */
         }
+       else if ( mode_is(v->domain, no_missed_ticks_pending) ) {
+           pt->pending_intr_nr--;
+           pt->last_plt_gtime = hvm_get_guest_time(v);
+       }
         else
         {
             pt->last_plt_gtime += pt->period_cycles;
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