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Paolo Valente a52a69ea89 block, bfq: limit tags for writes and async I/O
Asynchronous I/O can easily starve synchronous I/O (both sync reads
and sync writes), by consuming all request tags. Similarly, storms of
synchronous writes, such as those that sync(2) may trigger, can starve
synchronous reads. In their turn, these two problems may also cause
BFQ to loose control on latency for interactive and soft real-time
applications. For example, on a PLEXTOR PX-256M5S SSD, LibreOffice
Writer takes 0.6 seconds to start if the device is idle, but it takes
more than 45 seconds (!) if there are sequential writes in the
background.

This commit addresses this issue by limiting the maximum percentage of
tags that asynchronous I/O requests and synchronous write requests can
consume. In particular, this commit grants a higher threshold to
synchronous writes, to prevent the latter from being starved by
asynchronous I/O.

According to the above test, LibreOffice Writer now starts in about
1.2 seconds on average, regardless of the background workload, and
apart from some rare outlier. To check this improvement, run, e.g.,
sudo ./comm_startup_lat.sh bfq 5 5 seq 10 "lowriter --terminate_after_init"
for the comm_startup_lat benchmark in the S suite [1].

[1] https://github.com/Algodev-github/S

Tested-by: Oleksandr Natalenko <oleksandr@natalenko.name>
Tested-by: Holger Hoffstätte <holger@applied-asynchrony.com>
Signed-off-by: Paolo Valente <paolo.valente@linaro.org>
Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk>
2018-01-18 08:21:35 -07:00
Documentation Merge branch 'overlayfs-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mszeredi/vfs 2017-12-15 12:46:48 -08:00
arch Revert "mm: replace p??_write with pte_access_permitted in fault + gup paths" 2017-12-15 18:53:22 -08:00
block block, bfq: limit tags for writes and async I/O 2018-01-18 08:21:35 -07:00
certs License cleanup: add SPDX GPL-2.0 license identifier to files with no license 2017-11-02 11:10:55 +01:00
crypto crypto: scompress - use sgl_alloc() and sgl_free() 2018-01-06 09:18:00 -07:00
drivers blk-mq: improve DM's blk-mq IO merging via blk_insert_cloned_request feedback 2018-01-17 09:46:54 -07:00
firmware kbuild: remove all dummy assignments to obj- 2017-11-18 11:46:06 +09:00
fs writeback: update comment in inode_io_list_move_locked 2018-01-06 09:18:00 -07:00
include blkcg: simplify statistic accumulation code 2018-01-16 08:56:36 -07:00
init main: kernel_start: move housekeeping_init() before workqueue_init_early() 2017-11-27 08:56:57 -08:00
ipc Rename superblock flags (MS_xyz -> SB_xyz) 2017-11-27 13:05:09 -08:00
kernel genirq/affinity: assign vectors to all possible CPUs 2018-01-12 11:01:38 -07:00
lib lib/scatterlist: Introduce sgl_alloc() and sgl_free() 2018-01-06 09:18:00 -07:00
mm block: convert to bio_first_bvec_all & bio_first_page_all 2018-01-06 09:18:00 -07:00
net NFS client fixes for Linux 4.15-rc4 2017-12-16 13:12:53 -08:00
samples Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/bpf/bpf 2017-12-03 13:08:30 -05:00
scripts Merge branch 'locking-urgent-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip 2017-12-15 11:44:59 -08:00
security KEYS: reject NULL restriction string when type is specified 2017-12-08 15:13:29 +00:00
sound sound fixes for 4.15-rc3 2017-12-06 10:49:14 -08:00
tools Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/davem/net 2017-12-15 13:08:37 -08:00
usr initramfs: fix initramfs rebuilds w/ compression after disabling 2017-11-03 07:39:19 -07:00
virt KVM: x86: fix APIC page invalidation 2017-12-06 16:10:34 +01:00
.cocciconfig scripts: add Linux .cocciconfig for coccinelle 2016-07-22 12:13:39 +02:00
.get_maintainer.ignore
.gitattributes .gitattributes: set git diff driver for C source code files 2016-10-07 18:46:30 -07:00
.gitignore Kbuild misc updates for v4.15 2017-11-17 17:51:33 -08:00
.mailmap Add Jason Gunthorpe as co-maintainer of the RDMA stack 2017-11-17 09:36:18 -08:00
COPYING
CREDITS MAINTAINERS: update TPM driver infrastructure changes 2017-11-09 17:58:40 -08:00
Kbuild Kbuild updates for v4.15 2017-11-17 17:45:29 -08:00
Kconfig License cleanup: add SPDX GPL-2.0 license identifier to files with no license 2017-11-02 11:10:55 +01:00
MAINTAINERS Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/davem/net 2017-12-15 13:08:37 -08:00
Makefile Linux 4.15-rc4 2017-12-17 18:59:59 -08:00
README README: add a new README file, pointing to the Documentation/ 2016-10-24 08:12:35 -02:00

README

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

This file was moved to Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst

Please notice that there are several guides for kernel developers and users.
These guides can be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF.

In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``.

There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the Restructured Text markup notation.
See Documentation/00-INDEX for a list of what is contained in each file.

Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.