On Tue, Dec 11, 2018 at 10:00:35AM +0100, Steven Miao (Arm Technology China)
wrote:
> Hi Christopher,
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Christoffer Dall <christoffer.d...@arm.com>
> > Sent: Monday, December 10, 2018 9:19 PM
> > To: Steven Miao (Arm Technology China) <steven.m...@arm.com>
> > Cc: kvmarm@lists.cs.columbia.edu
> > Subject: Re: KVM arm realtime performance optimization
> >
> > On Mon, Dec 10, 2018 at 05:36:09AM +0000, Steven Miao (Arm Technology
> > China) wrote:
> > >
> > > From: kvmarm-boun...@lists.cs.columbia.edu
> > > <kvmarm-boun...@lists.cs.columbia.edu> On Behalf Of Steven Miao (Arm
> > > Technology China)
> > > Sent: Thursday, December 6, 2018 3:05 PM
> > > To: kvmarm@lists.cs.columbia.edu
> > > Subject: KVM arm realtime performance optimization
> > >
> > > Hi Everyone,
> > >
> > > I' currently testing KVM arm realtime performance on a hikey960 board.
> > My test benchmark is cyclictest to measure thread wake up latency both on
> > Host linux OS and KVM Guest linux OS.
> > >
> > > Host OS:
> > >
> > > hikey960:/mnt/debian/usr/src/linux# cyclictest -p 99 -t 4 -m -n -a
> > > 0-3 -l 100000 # /dev/cpu_dma_latency set to 0us
> > > WARN: Running on unknown kernel version...YMMV
> > > policy: fifo: loadavg: 0.00 0.00 0.00 1/165 3270
> > >
> > > T: 0 ( 3266) P:99 I:1000 C: 100000 Min: 4 Act: 15 Avg: 15 Max:
> > > 139
> > > T: 1 ( 3267) P:99 I:1500 C: 66736 Min: 4 Act: 15 Avg: 15 Max:
> > > 239
> > > T: 2 ( 3268) P:99 I:2000 C: 50051 Min: 4 Act: 19 Avg: 15 Max:
> > > 43
> > > T: 3 ( 3269) P:99 I:2500 C: 40039 Min: 5 Act: 15 Avg: 16 Max:
> > > 74
> > >
> > > Guest OS:
> > > root@genericarmv8:~# cyclictest -p 99 -t 4 -m -n -a 0-3 -l 100000 #
> > > /dev/cpu_dma_latency set to 0us
> > > WARN: Running on unknown kernel version...YMMV
> > > policy: fifo: loadavg: 0.13 0.05 0.01 1/70 293
> > >
> > > T: 0 ( 290) P:99 I:1000 C: 100000 Min: 7 Act: 44 Avg: 85 Max:
> > > 16111
> > > T: 1 ( 291) P:99 I:1500 C: 66665 Min: 7 Act: 81 Avg: 90 Max:
> > > 15306
> > > T: 2 ( 292) P:99 I:2000 C: 49995 Min: 7 Act: 88 Avg: 87 Max:
> > > 16703
> > > T: 3 ( 293) P:99 I:2500 C: 39992 Min: 8 Act: 72 Avg: 97 Max:
> > > 14976
> > >
> > >
> > > RT performance on KVM guest OS is poor compared to that on host OS. The
> > average wake up latency is about 6 - 7 times on Guest OS vs on Host OS.
> > > I've tried some configurations to improve RT in KVM, like:
> > > 1 Can be combined with CPU isolation
> > > 2 Host OS and Guest OS use RT preempt kernel
> > > 3 Host CPU avoid frequency change
> > > 4 Configure NO_HZ_FULL for Guest OS
> > >
> > > There could be a little improvement after apply above configuration, but
> > the RT performance is still very poor.
> > >
> > > 5 Guest OS use idle poll instead of WFI to avoid trap and switch out
> > >
> > > diff --git a/arch/arm64/kernel/process.c b/arch/arm64/kernel/process.c
> > > index 2dc0f84..53aef78 100644
> > > --- a/arch/arm64/kernel/process.c
> > > +++ b/arch/arm64/kernel/process.c
> > > @@ -83,7 +83,7 @@ void arch_cpu_idle(void)
> > > * tricks
> > > */
> > > trace_cpu_idle_rcuidle(1, smp_processor_id());
> > > - cpu_do_idle();
> > > + cpu_relax();
> > > local_irq_enable();
> > > trace_cpu_idle_rcuidle(PWR_EVENT_EXIT, smp_processor_id()); }
> > >
> > > root@genericarmv8:~# cyclictest -p 99 -t 4 -m -n -l 100000 #
> > > /dev/cpu_dma_latency set to 0us
> > > WARN: Running on unknown kernel version...YMMV
> > > policy: fifo: loadavg: 0.07 0.03 0.00 1/99 328
> > >
> > > T: 0 ( 325) P:99 I:1000 C: 100000 Min: 3 Act: 6 Avg: 13 Max:
> > > 4999
> > > T: 1 ( 326) P:99 I:1500 C: 66659 Min: 5 Act: 7 Avg: 14 Max:
> > > 3449
> > > T: 2 ( 327) P:99 I:2000 C: 49989 Min: 4 Act: 7 Avg: 9 Max:
> > > 11471
> > > T: 3 ( 328) P:99 I:2500 C: 39986 Min: 4 Act: 14 Avg: 14 Max:
> > > 11253
> > >
> > > The method 5 can improve Guest OS RT performance a lot, the average
> > thread wake up latency on Guest OS is almost same as its on Host OS, but the
> > Max wake up latency is still very poor.
> > >
> > > Anyone has any idea to improve RT performance on KVM Guest OS?
> > Although method 5 can improve RT performance on Guest OS a lot, I think it
> > is not good idea.
> > >
> > This is a known problem and there have been presentations about similar
> > problems on x86 in past KVM Forums.
> >
> > The first thing to do is analyze the critical path that adds latency to a
> > wakeup.
> > One way to do that is to instrument the path by adding time counter reads to
> > the path and figuring out what takes time.
> >
> > One thing you can look at is having a configurable grace period in KVM's
> > block function before the process actually goes to sleep (and calls
> > kvm_vcpu_put) and the host scheduler, and see if that helps anything.
> Thanks for your suggestion. I will do some further investigation on it, some
> arm server partner reported KVM Guest RT latency is a little too big than on
> x86.
>
> >
> > At the end of the day, virtualization is going to add a lot of latency when
> > you
> > have to switch the entire state of your CPU, and in terms of virtual RT, you
> > end up with a very high minimal latency.
> Got it. Hope some new hardware features like VHE and direct inject VIRQ can
> improve the latency.
Just FYI: Those features are not going to help you for wake-up time
latency, at all.
Also, I warn against optimizing specifically for cyclictest. Most
likely you're using cyclictest as some measure for latency for a
particular workload, and you must take that into consideration. For
example, if you care about interrupt latency from a device using a
directly injected LPI, that is going to look very different from going
to sleep and getting a timer interrupt (PPI) waking you up.
Thanks,
Christoffer
_______________________________________________
kvmarm mailing list
kvmarm@lists.cs.columbia.edu
https://lists.cs.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/kvmarm
