Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: -rt dbench scalabiltiy issue | From | john stultz <> | Date | Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:37:36 -0700 |
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On Fri, 2009-10-16 at 18:03 -0700, john stultz wrote: > On Fri, 2009-10-16 at 17:45 -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote: > > On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 01:05:19PM -0700, john stultz wrote: > > > See http://lwn.net/Articles/354690/ for a bit of background here. > > > > > > I've been looking at scalability regressions in the -rt kernel. One easy > > > place to see regressions is with the dbench benchmark. While dbench can > > > be painfully noisy from run to run, it does clearly show some severe > > > regressions with -rt. > > > > > > There's a chart in the article above that illustrates this, but here's > > > some specific numbers on an 8-way box running dbench-3.04 as follows: > > > > > > ./dbench 8 -t 10 -D . -c client.txt 2>&1 > > > > > > I ran both on an ext3 disk and a ramfs mounted directory. > > > > > > (Again, the numbers are VERY rough due to the run-to-run variance seen) > > > > > > ext3 ramfs > > > 2.6.32-rc3: ~1800 MB/sec ~1600 MB/sec > > > 2.6.31.2-rt13: ~300 MB/sec ~66 MB/sec > > > > > > Ouch. Similar to the charts in the LWN article. > > > > > > Dino pointed out that using lockstat with -rt, we can see the > > > dcache_lock is fairly hot with the -rt kernel. One of the issues with > > > the -rt tree is that the change from spinlocks to sleeping-spinlocks > > > doesn't effect the un-contended case very much, but when there is > > > contention on the lock, the overhead is much worse then with vanilla. > > > > > > And as noted at the realtime mini-conf, Ingo saw this dcache_lock > > > bottleneck as well and suggested trying Nick Piggin's dcache_lock > > > removal patches. > > > > > > So over the last week, I've ported Nick's fs-scale patches to -rt. > > > > > > Specifically the tarball found here: > > > ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/npiggin/patches/fs-scale/06102009.tar.gz > > > > > > > > > Due to the 2.6.32 2.6.31-rt split, the port wasn't exactly straight > > > forward, but I believe I managed to do a decent job. Once I had the > > > patchset applied, building and booted, I eagerly ran dbench to see the > > > new results, aaaaaand..... > > > > > > ext3 ramfs > > > 2.6.31.2-rt13-nick: ~80 MB/sec ~126 MB/sec > > > > > > > > > So yea, mixed bag there. The ramfs got a little bit better but not that > > > much, and the ext3 numbers regressed further. > > > > OK, I will ask the stupid question... What happens if you run on ext2? > > Yep. That was next on my list. Basically its faster, but the regressions > are similar % wise with each patchset. > > ext3 ext2 > 2.6.32-rc3: ~1800 MB/sec ~2900 MB/sec > 2.6.31.2-rt13: ~300 MB/sec ~600 MB/sec > 2.6.31.2-rt13-nick: ~80 MB/sec ~130 MB/sec
Additionally looking at the perf data, it does seem the dcache_lock is the contention point w/ ext2 on -rt13, but with Nick's patch, the contention still stays mostly in the dput/path_get functions. So it seems its just been moved rather then eased with _my port_ of Nick's patch (emphasis on "my port", since with nick's patch against mainline there is no regression at all.. I don't want to drag Nick's patches through the mud here :)
thanks -john
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