- kernel maintains a cpu_info array which contains various
information about each cpu as filled when each cpu boots
- the information contains idetification, features etc.
- accidentaly this wasn't part of the SMP merge and the implementation
remained uncomplete with the timer keeping ticking periodically
- APIC timer is set for a signel shot and restarted everytime it
expires. This way we can keep the AP's trully idle
- the timer is restarted a little later before leaving to userspace
- LAPIC_TIMER_ICR is written before LAPIC_LVTTR so the newest value is
used
- the Intel architecture cycle counter (performance counter) does not
count when the CPU is idle therefore we use busy loop instead of
halting the cpu when there is nothing to schedule
- the downside is that handling interrupts may be accounted as idle
time if a sample is taken before we get out of the nested trap and
pick a new process
- contributed by Bjorn Swift
- adds process accounting, for example counting the number of messages
sent, how often the process was preemted and how much time it spent
in the run queue. These statistics, along with the current cpu load,
are sent back to the user-space scheduler in the Out Of Quantum
message.
- the user-space scheduler may choose to make use of these statistics
when making scheduling decisions. For isntance the cpu load becomes
especially useful when scheduling on multiple cores.
- APIC timer always reprogrammed if expired
- timer tick never happens when in kernel => never immediate return
from userspace to kernel because of a buffered interrupt
- renamed argument to lapic_set_timer_one_shot()
- removed arch_ prefix from timer functions
- any cpu can use smp_schedule() to tell another cpu to reschedule
- if an AP is idle, it turns off timer as there is nothing to
preempt, no need to wakeup just to go back to sleep again
- if a cpu makes a process runnable on an idle cpu, it must wake it up
to reschedule
- pressing 'B' on the serial cnsole prints statistics for BKL per cpu.
- 'b' resets the counters
- it presents number of cycles each CPU spends in kernel, how many
cycyles it spends spinning while waiting for the BKL
- it shows optimistic estimation in how many cases we get the lock
immediately without spinning. As the test is not atomic the lock may
be already held by some other cpu before we actually try to acquire
it.
- tsc_ctr_switch is made cpu local
- although an x86 specific variable it must be declared globaly as the
cpulocal implementation does not allow otherwise
- to isolate execution inside kernel we use a big kernel lock
implemented as a spinlock
- the lock is acquired asap after entering kernel mode and released as
late as possible. Only one CPU as a time can execute the core kernel
code
- measurement son real hw show that the overhead of this lock is close
to 0% of kernel time for the currnet system
- the overhead of this lock may be as high as 45% of kernel time in
virtual machines depending on the ratio between physical CPUs
available and emulated CPUs. The performance degradation is
significant
- kernel detects CPUs by searching ACPI tables for local apic nodes
- each CPU has its own TSS that points to its own stack. All cpus boot
on the same boot stack (in sequence) but switch to its private stack
as soon as they can.
- final booting code in main() placed in bsp_finish_booting() which is
executed only after the BSP switches to its final stack
- apic functions to send startup interrupts
- assembler functions to handle CPU features not needed for single cpu
mode like memory barries, HT detection etc.
- new files kernel/smp.[ch], kernel/arch/i386/arch_smp.c and
kernel/arch/i386/include/arch_smp.h
- 16-bit trampoline code for the APs. It is executed by each AP after
receiving startup IPIs it brings up the CPUs to 32bit mode and let
them spin in an infinite loop so they don't do any damage.
- implementation of kernel spinlock
- CONFIG_SMP and CONFIG_MAX_CPUS set by the build system
- Currently the cpu time quantum is timer-ticks based. Thus the
remaining quantum is decreased only if the processes is interrupted
by a timer tick. As processes block a lot this typically does not
happen for normal user processes. Also the quantum depends on the
frequency of the timer.
- This change makes the quantum miliseconds based. Internally the
miliseconds are translated into cpu cycles. Everytime userspace
execution is interrupted by kernel the cycles just consumed by the
current process are deducted from the remaining quantum.
- It makes the quantum system timer frequency independent.
- The boot processes quantum is loosely derived from the tick-based
quantas and 60Hz timer and subject to future change
- the 64bit arithmetics is a little ugly, will be changes once we have
compiler support for 64bit integers (soon)
- this patch only renames schedcheck() to switch_to_user(),
cycles_accounting_stop() to context_stop() and restart() to
+restore_user_context()
- the motivation is that since the introduction of schedcheck() it has
been abused for many things. It deserves a better name. It should
express the fact that from the moment we call the function we are in
the process of switching to user.
- cycles_accounting_stop() was originally a single purpose function.
As this function is called at were convenient places it is used in
for other things too, e.g. (un)locking the kernel. Thus it deserves
a better name too.
- using the old name, restart() does not call schedcheck(), however
calls to restart are replaced by calls to schedcheck()
[switch_to_user] and it calls restart() [restore_user_context]
