Scheduler monitors¶
Name: sched
Type: container for multiple monitors
Author: Gabriele Monaco <gmonaco@redhat.com>, Daniel Bristot de Oliveira <bristot@kernel.org>
Description¶
Monitors describing complex systems, such as the scheduler, can easily grow to the point where they are just hard to understand because of the many possible state transitions. Often it is possible to break such descriptions into smaller monitors, sharing some or all events. Enabling those smaller monitors concurrently is, in fact, testing the system as if we had one single larger monitor. Splitting models into multiple specification is not only easier to understand, but gives some more clues when we see errors.
The sched monitor is a set of specifications to describe the scheduler behaviour. It includes several per-cpu and per-task monitors that work independently to verify different specifications the scheduler should follow.
To make this system as straightforward as possible, sched specifications are nested monitors, whereas sched itself is a container. From the interface perspective, sched includes other monitors as sub-directories, enabling/disabling or setting reactors to sched, propagates the change to all monitors, however single monitors can be used independently as well.
It is important that future modules are built after their container (sched, in this case), otherwise the linker would not respect the order and the nesting wouldn’t work as expected. To do so, simply add them after sched in the Makefile.
Specifications¶
The specifications included in sched are currently a work in progress, adapting the ones defined in by Daniel Bristot in [1].
Currently we included the following:
Monitor sco¶
The scheduling context operations (sco) monitor ensures changes in a task state happen only in thread context:
|
|
v
sched_set_state +------------------+
+------------------ | |
| | thread_context |
+-----------------> | | <+
+------------------+ |
| |
| schedule_entry | schedule_exit
v |
|
scheduling_context -+
Monitor snroc¶
The set non runnable on its own context (snroc) monitor ensures changes in a task state happens only in the respective task’s context. This is a per-task monitor:
|
|
v
+------------------+
| other_context | <+
+------------------+ |
| |
| sched_switch_in | sched_switch_out
v |
sched_set_state |
+------------------ |
| own_context |
+-----------------> -+
Monitor scpd¶
The schedule called with preemption disabled (scpd) monitor ensures schedule is called with preemption disabled:
|
|
v
+------------------+
| cant_sched | <+
+------------------+ |
| |
| preempt_disable | preempt_enable
v |
schedule_entry |
schedule_exit |
+----------------- can_sched |
| |
+----------------> -+
Monitor snep¶
The schedule does not enable preempt (snep) monitor ensures a schedule call does not enable preemption:
|
|
v
preempt_disable +------------------------+
preempt_enable | |
+------------------ | non_scheduling_context |
| | |
+-----------------> | | <+
+------------------------+ |
| |
| schedule_entry | schedule_exit
v |
|
scheduling_contex -+
Monitor sts¶
The schedule implies task switch (sts) monitor ensures a task switch happens only in scheduling context and up to once, as well as scheduling occurs with interrupts enabled but no task switch can happen before interrupts are disabled. When the next task picked for execution is the same as the previously running one, no real task switch occurs but interrupts are disabled nonetheless:
irq_entry |
+----+ |
v | v
+------------+ irq_enable #===================# irq_disable
| | ------------> H H irq_entry
| cant_sched | <------------ H H irq_enable
| | irq_disable H can_sched H --------------+
+------------+ H H |
H H |
+---------------> H H <-------------+
| #===================#
| |
schedule_exit | schedule_entry
| v
| +-------------------+ irq_enable
| | scheduling | <---------------+
| +-------------------+ |
| | |
| | irq_disable +--------+ irq_entry
| v | | --------+
| +-------------------+ irq_entry | in_irq | |
| | | -----------> | | <-------+
| | disable_to_switch | +--------+
| | | --+
| +-------------------+ |
| | |
| | sched_switch |
| v |
| +-------------------+ |
| | switching | | irq_enable
| +-------------------+ |
| | |
| | irq_enable |
| v |
| +-------------------+ |
+-- | enable_to_exit | <-+
+-------------------+
^ | irq_disable
| | irq_entry
+---------------+ irq_enable
Monitor nrp¶
The need resched preempts (nrp) monitor ensures preemption requires
need_resched. Only kernel preemption is considered, since preemption
while returning to userspace, for this monitor, is indistinguishable from
sched_switch_yield (described in the sssw monitor).
A kernel preemption is whenever __schedule is called with the preemption
flag set to true (e.g. from preempt_enable or exiting from interrupts). This
type of preemption occurs after the need for rescheduling has been set.
This is not valid for the lazy variant of the flag, which causes only
userspace preemption.
A schedule_entry_preempt may involve a task switch or not, in the latter
case, a task goes through the scheduler from a preemption context but it is
picked as the next task to run. Since the scheduler runs, this clears the need
to reschedule. The any_thread_running state does not imply the monitored
task is not running as this monitor does not track the outcome of scheduling.
In theory, a preemption can only occur after the need_resched flag is set. In
practice, however, it is possible to see a preemption where the flag is not
set. This can happen in one specific condition:
need_resched
preempt_schedule()
preempt_schedule_irq()
__schedule()
!need_resched
__schedule()
In the situation above, standard preemption starts (e.g. from preempt_enable
when the flag is set), an interrupt occurs before scheduling and, on its exit
path, it schedules, which clears the need_resched flag.
When the preempted task runs again, the standard preemption started earlier
resumes, although the flag is no longer set. The monitor considers this a
nested_preemption, this allows another preemption without re-setting the
flag. This condition relaxes the monitor constraints and may catch false
negatives (i.e. no real nested_preemptions) but makes the monitor more
robust and able to validate other scenarios.
For simplicity, the monitor starts in preempt_irq, although no interrupt
occurred, as the situation above is hard to pinpoint:
schedule_entry
irq_entry #===========================================#
+-------------------------- H H
| H H
+-------------------------> H any_thread_running H
H H
+-------------------------> H H
| #===========================================#
| schedule_entry | ^
| schedule_entry_preempt | sched_need_resched | schedule_entry
| | schedule_entry_preempt
| v |
| +----------------------+ |
| +--- | | |
| sched_need_resched | | rescheduling | -+
| +--> | |
| +----------------------+
| | irq_entry
| v
| +----------------------+
| | | ---+
| ---> | | | sched_need_resched
| | preempt_irq | | irq_entry
| | | <--+
| | | <--+
| +----------------------+ |
| | schedule_entry | sched_need_resched
| | schedule_entry_preempt |
| v |
| +-----------------------+ |
+-------------------------- | nested_preempt | --+
+-----------------------+
^ irq_entry |
+-------------------+
Due to how the need_resched flag on the preemption count works on arm64,
this monitor is unstable on that architecture, as it often records preemption
when the flag is not set, even in presence of the workaround above.
For the time being, the monitor is disabled by default on arm64.
Monitor sssw¶
The set state sleep and wakeup (sssw) monitor ensures set_state to
sleepable leads to sleeping and sleeping tasks require wakeup. It includes the
following types of switch:
switch_suspend: a task puts itself to sleep, this can happen only after explicitly setting the task tosleepable. After a task is suspended, it needs to be woken up (wakingstate) before being switched in again. Setting the task’s state tosleepablecan be reverted before switching if it is woken up or set torunnable.switch_blocking: a special case of aswitch_suspendwhere the task is waiting on a sleeping RT lock (PREEMPT_RTonly), it is common to see wakeup and set state events racing with each other and this leads the model to perceive this type of switch when the task is not set to sleepable. This is a limitation of the model in SMP system and workarounds may slow down the system.switch_preempt: a task switch as a result of kernel preemption (schedule_entry_preemptin the nrp model).switch_yield: a task explicitly calls the scheduler or is preempted while returning to userspace. It can happen after ayieldsystem call, from the idle task or if theneed_reschedflag is set. By definition, a task cannot yield whilesleepableas that would be a suspension. A special case of a yield occurs when a task inTASK_INTERRUPTIBLEcalls the scheduler while a signal is pending. The task doesn’t go through the usual blocking/waking and is set back to runnable, the resulting switch (if there) looks like a yield to thesignal_wakeupstate and is followed by the signal delivery. From this state, the monitor expects a signal even if it sees a wakeup event, although not necessary, to rule out false negatives.
This monitor doesn’t include a running state, sleepable and runnable
are only referring to the task’s desired state, which could be scheduled out
(e.g. due to preemption). However, it does include the event
sched_switch_in to represent when a task is allowed to become running. This
can be triggered also by preemption, but cannot occur after the task got to
sleeping before a wakeup occurs:
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| |
| switch_suspend | |
| switch_blocking | |
v v |
+----------+ #==========================# set_state_runnable |
| | H H wakeup |
| | H H switch_in |
| | H H switch_yield |
| sleeping | H H switch_preempt |
| | H H signal_deliver |
| | switch_ H H ------+ |
| | _blocking H runnable H | |
| | <----------- H H <-----+ |
+----------+ H H |
| wakeup H H |
+---------------------> H H |
H H |
+---------> H H |
| #==========================# |
| | ^ |
| | | set_state_runnable |
| | | wakeup |
| set_state_sleepable | +------------------------+
| v | |
| +--------------------------+ set_state_sleepable
| | | switch_in
| | | switch_preempt
signal_deliver | sleepable | signal_deliver
| | | ------+
| | | |
| | | <-----+
| +--------------------------+
| | ^
| switch_yield | set_state_sleepable
| v |
| +---------------+ |
+---------- | signal_wakeup | -+
+---------------+
^ | switch_in
| | switch_preempt
| | switch_yield
+-----------+ wakeup
Monitor opid¶
The operations with preemption and irq disabled (opid) monitor ensures
operations like wakeup and need_resched occur with interrupts and
preemption disabled or during interrupt context, in such case preemption may
not be disabled explicitly.
need_resched can be set by some RCU internals functions, in which case it
doesn’t match a task wakeup and might occur with only interrupts disabled:
| sched_need_resched
| sched_waking
| irq_entry
| +--------------------+
v v |
+------------------------------------------------------+
+----------- | disabled | <+
| +------------------------------------------------------+ |
| | ^ |
| | preempt_disable sched_need_resched |
| preempt_enable | +--------------------+ |
| v | v | |
| +------------------------------------------------------+ |
| | irq_disabled | |
| +------------------------------------------------------+ |
| | | ^ |
| irq_entry irq_entry | | |
| sched_need_resched v | irq_disable |
| sched_waking +--------------+ | | |
| +----- | | irq_enable | |
| | | in_irq | | | |
| +----> | | | | |
| +--------------+ | | irq_disable
| | | | |
| irq_enable | irq_enable | | |
| v v | |
| #======================================================# |
| H enabled H |
| #======================================================# |
| | ^ ^ preempt_enable | |
| preempt_disable preempt_enable +--------------------+ |
| v | |
| +------------------+ | |
+----------> | preempt_disabled | -+ |
+------------------+ |
| |
+-------------------------------------------------------+
This monitor is designed to work on PREEMPT_RT kernels, the special case of
events occurring in interrupt context is a shortcut to identify valid scenarios
where the preemption tracepoints might not be visible, during interrupts
preemption is always disabled. On non- PREEMPT_RT kernels, the interrupts
might invoke a softirq to set need_resched and wake up a task. This is
another special case that is currently not supported by the monitor.