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-rw-r--r--Documentation/cgroups/blkio-controller.txt177
1 files changed, 160 insertions, 17 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/cgroups/blkio-controller.txt b/Documentation/cgroups/blkio-controller.txt
index 630879cd9a4..6919d62591d 100644
--- a/Documentation/cgroups/blkio-controller.txt
+++ b/Documentation/cgroups/blkio-controller.txt
@@ -17,6 +17,9 @@ HOWTO
You can do a very simple testing of running two dd threads in two different
cgroups. Here is what you can do.
+- Enable Block IO controller
+ CONFIG_BLK_CGROUP=y
+
- Enable group scheduling in CFQ
CONFIG_CFQ_GROUP_IOSCHED=y
@@ -54,31 +57,51 @@ cgroups. Here is what you can do.
Various user visible config options
===================================
+CONFIG_BLK_CGROUP
+ - Block IO controller.
+
+CONFIG_DEBUG_BLK_CGROUP
+ - Debug help. Right now some additional stats file show up in cgroup
+ if this option is enabled.
+
CONFIG_CFQ_GROUP_IOSCHED
- Enables group scheduling in CFQ. Currently only 1 level of group
creation is allowed.
-CONFIG_DEBUG_CFQ_IOSCHED
- - Enables some debugging messages in blktrace. Also creates extra
- cgroup file blkio.dequeue.
+Details of cgroup files
+=======================
+- blkio.weight
+ - Specifies per cgroup weight. This is default weight of the group
+ on all the devices until and unless overridden by per device rule.
+ (See blkio.weight_device).
+ Currently allowed range of weights is from 100 to 1000.
-Config options selected automatically
-=====================================
-These config options are not user visible and are selected/deselected
-automatically based on IO scheduler configuration.
+- blkio.weight_device
+ - One can specify per cgroup per device rules using this interface.
+ These rules override the default value of group weight as specified
+ by blkio.weight.
-CONFIG_BLK_CGROUP
- - Block IO controller. Selected by CONFIG_CFQ_GROUP_IOSCHED.
+ Following is the format.
-CONFIG_DEBUG_BLK_CGROUP
- - Debug help. Selected by CONFIG_DEBUG_CFQ_IOSCHED.
+ #echo dev_maj:dev_minor weight > /path/to/cgroup/blkio.weight_device
+ Configure weight=300 on /dev/sdb (8:16) in this cgroup
+ # echo 8:16 300 > blkio.weight_device
+ # cat blkio.weight_device
+ dev weight
+ 8:16 300
-Details of cgroup files
-=======================
-- blkio.weight
- - Specifies per cgroup weight.
+ Configure weight=500 on /dev/sda (8:0) in this cgroup
+ # echo 8:0 500 > blkio.weight_device
+ # cat blkio.weight_device
+ dev weight
+ 8:0 500
+ 8:16 300
- Currently allowed range of weights is from 100 to 1000.
+ Remove specific weight for /dev/sda in this cgroup
+ # echo 8:0 0 > blkio.weight_device
+ # cat blkio.weight_device
+ dev weight
+ 8:16 300
- blkio.time
- disk time allocated to cgroup per device in milliseconds. First
@@ -92,16 +115,109 @@ Details of cgroup files
third field specifies the number of sectors transferred by the
group to/from the device.
+- blkio.io_service_bytes
+ - Number of bytes transferred to/from the disk by the group. These
+ are further divided by the type of operation - read or write, sync
+ or async. First two fields specify the major and minor number of the
+ device, third field specifies the operation type and the fourth field
+ specifies the number of bytes.
+
+- blkio.io_serviced
+ - Number of IOs completed to/from the disk by the group. These
+ are further divided by the type of operation - read or write, sync
+ or async. First two fields specify the major and minor number of the
+ device, third field specifies the operation type and the fourth field
+ specifies the number of IOs.
+
+- blkio.io_service_time
+ - Total amount of time between request dispatch and request completion
+ for the IOs done by this cgroup. This is in nanoseconds to make it
+ meaningful for flash devices too. For devices with queue depth of 1,
+ this time represents the actual service time. When queue_depth > 1,
+ that is no longer true as requests may be served out of order. This
+ may cause the service time for a given IO to include the service time
+ of multiple IOs when served out of order which may result in total
+ io_service_time > actual time elapsed. This time is further divided by
+ the type of operation - read or write, sync or async. First two fields
+ specify the major and minor number of the device, third field
+ specifies the operation type and the fourth field specifies the
+ io_service_time in ns.
+
+- blkio.io_wait_time
+ - Total amount of time the IOs for this cgroup spent waiting in the
+ scheduler queues for service. This can be greater than the total time
+ elapsed since it is cumulative io_wait_time for all IOs. It is not a
+ measure of total time the cgroup spent waiting but rather a measure of
+ the wait_time for its individual IOs. For devices with queue_depth > 1
+ this metric does not include the time spent waiting for service once
+ the IO is dispatched to the device but till it actually gets serviced
+ (there might be a time lag here due to re-ordering of requests by the
+ device). This is in nanoseconds to make it meaningful for flash
+ devices too. This time is further divided by the type of operation -
+ read or write, sync or async. First two fields specify the major and
+ minor number of the device, third field specifies the operation type
+ and the fourth field specifies the io_wait_time in ns.
+
+- blkio.io_merged
+ - Total number of bios/requests merged into requests belonging to this
+ cgroup. This is further divided by the type of operation - read or
+ write, sync or async.
+
+- blkio.io_queued
+ - Total number of requests queued up at any given instant for this
+ cgroup. This is further divided by the type of operation - read or
+ write, sync or async.
+
+- blkio.avg_queue_size
+ - Debugging aid only enabled if CONFIG_DEBUG_BLK_CGROUP=y.
+ The average queue size for this cgroup over the entire time of this
+ cgroup's existence. Queue size samples are taken each time one of the
+ queues of this cgroup gets a timeslice.
+
+- blkio.group_wait_time
+ - Debugging aid only enabled if CONFIG_DEBUG_BLK_CGROUP=y.
+ This is the amount of time the cgroup had to wait since it became busy
+ (i.e., went from 0 to 1 request queued) to get a timeslice for one of
+ its queues. This is different from the io_wait_time which is the
+ cumulative total of the amount of time spent by each IO in that cgroup
+ waiting in the scheduler queue. This is in nanoseconds. If this is
+ read when the cgroup is in a waiting (for timeslice) state, the stat
+ will only report the group_wait_time accumulated till the last time it
+ got a timeslice and will not include the current delta.
+
+- blkio.empty_time
+ - Debugging aid only enabled if CONFIG_DEBUG_BLK_CGROUP=y.
+ This is the amount of time a cgroup spends without any pending
+ requests when not being served, i.e., it does not include any time
+ spent idling for one of the queues of the cgroup. This is in
+ nanoseconds. If this is read when the cgroup is in an empty state,
+ the stat will only report the empty_time accumulated till the last
+ time it had a pending request and will not include the current delta.
+
+- blkio.idle_time
+ - Debugging aid only enabled if CONFIG_DEBUG_BLK_CGROUP=y.
+ This is the amount of time spent by the IO scheduler idling for a
+ given cgroup in anticipation of a better request than the exising ones
+ from other queues/cgroups. This is in nanoseconds. If this is read
+ when the cgroup is in an idling state, the stat will only report the
+ idle_time accumulated till the last idle period and will not include
+ the current delta.
+
- blkio.dequeue
- - Debugging aid only enabled if CONFIG_DEBUG_CFQ_IOSCHED=y. This
+ - Debugging aid only enabled if CONFIG_DEBUG_BLK_CGROUP=y. This
gives the statistics about how many a times a group was dequeued
from service tree of the device. First two fields specify the major
and minor number of the device and third field specifies the number
of times a group was dequeued from a particular device.
+- blkio.reset_stats
+ - Writing an int to this file will result in resetting all the stats
+ for that cgroup.
+
CFQ sysfs tunable
=================
/sys/block/<disk>/queue/iosched/group_isolation
+-----------------------------------------------
If group_isolation=1, it provides stronger isolation between groups at the
expense of throughput. By default group_isolation is 0. In general that
@@ -128,6 +244,33 @@ By default one should run with group_isolation=0. If that is not sufficient
and one wants stronger isolation between groups, then set group_isolation=1
but this will come at cost of reduced throughput.
+/sys/block/<disk>/queue/iosched/slice_idle
+------------------------------------------
+On a faster hardware CFQ can be slow, especially with sequential workload.
+This happens because CFQ idles on a single queue and single queue might not
+drive deeper request queue depths to keep the storage busy. In such scenarios
+one can try setting slice_idle=0 and that would switch CFQ to IOPS
+(IO operations per second) mode on NCQ supporting hardware.
+
+That means CFQ will not idle between cfq queues of a cfq group and hence be
+able to driver higher queue depth and achieve better throughput. That also
+means that cfq provides fairness among groups in terms of IOPS and not in
+terms of disk time.
+
+/sys/block/<disk>/queue/iosched/group_idle
+------------------------------------------
+If one disables idling on individual cfq queues and cfq service trees by
+setting slice_idle=0, group_idle kicks in. That means CFQ will still idle
+on the group in an attempt to provide fairness among groups.
+
+By default group_idle is same as slice_idle and does not do anything if
+slice_idle is enabled.
+
+One can experience an overall throughput drop if you have created multiple
+groups and put applications in that group which are not driving enough
+IO to keep disk busy. In that case set group_idle=0, and CFQ will not idle
+on individual groups and throughput should improve.
+
What works
==========
- Currently only sync IO queues are support. All the buffered writes are