x86/intel_rdt: Documentation for Cache Pseudo-Locking

Add description of Cache Pseudo-Locking feature, its interface, as well as
an example of its usage.

Signed-off-by: Reinette Chatre <reinette.chatre@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: fenghua.yu@intel.com
Cc: tony.luck@intel.com
Cc: vikas.shivappa@linux.intel.com
Cc: gavin.hindman@intel.com
Cc: jithu.joseph@intel.com
Cc: dave.hansen@intel.com
Cc: hpa@zytor.com
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/6e118c15d2c254a27b8891783505cd1bb94a2b10.1529706536.git.reinette.chatre@intel.com
This commit is contained in:
Reinette Chatre 2018-06-22 15:42:07 -07:00 committed by Thomas Gleixner
parent d9b48c86eb
commit e17e733070

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@ -29,7 +29,11 @@ mount options are:
L2 and L3 CDP are controlled seperately.
RDT features are orthogonal. A particular system may support only
monitoring, only control, or both monitoring and control.
monitoring, only control, or both monitoring and control. Cache
pseudo-locking is a unique way of using cache control to "pin" or
"lock" data in the cache. Details can be found in
"Cache Pseudo-Locking".
The mount succeeds if either of allocation or monitoring is present, but
only those files and directories supported by the system will be created.
@ -86,6 +90,8 @@ related to allocation:
and available for sharing.
"E" - Corresponding region is used exclusively by
one resource group. No sharing allowed.
"P" - Corresponding region is pseudo-locked. No
sharing allowed.
Memory bandwitdh(MB) subdirectory contains the following files
with respect to allocation:
@ -192,7 +198,12 @@ When control is enabled all CTRL_MON groups will also contain:
"mode":
The "mode" of the resource group dictates the sharing of its
allocations. A "shareable" resource group allows sharing of its
allocations while an "exclusive" resource group does not.
allocations while an "exclusive" resource group does not. A
cache pseudo-locked region is created by first writing
"pseudo-locksetup" to the "mode" file before writing the cache
pseudo-locked region's schemata to the resource group's "schemata"
file. On successful pseudo-locked region creation the mode will
automatically change to "pseudo-locked".
When monitoring is enabled all MON groups will also contain:
@ -410,6 +421,170 @@ L3CODE:0=fffff;1=fffff;2=fffff;3=fffff
L3DATA:0=fffff;1=fffff;2=3c0;3=fffff
L3CODE:0=fffff;1=fffff;2=fffff;3=fffff
Cache Pseudo-Locking
--------------------
CAT enables a user to specify the amount of cache space that an
application can fill. Cache pseudo-locking builds on the fact that a
CPU can still read and write data pre-allocated outside its current
allocated area on a cache hit. With cache pseudo-locking, data can be
preloaded into a reserved portion of cache that no application can
fill, and from that point on will only serve cache hits. The cache
pseudo-locked memory is made accessible to user space where an
application can map it into its virtual address space and thus have
a region of memory with reduced average read latency.
The creation of a cache pseudo-locked region is triggered by a request
from the user to do so that is accompanied by a schemata of the region
to be pseudo-locked. The cache pseudo-locked region is created as follows:
- Create a CAT allocation CLOSNEW with a CBM matching the schemata
from the user of the cache region that will contain the pseudo-locked
memory. This region must not overlap with any current CAT allocation/CLOS
on the system and no future overlap with this cache region is allowed
while the pseudo-locked region exists.
- Create a contiguous region of memory of the same size as the cache
region.
- Flush the cache, disable hardware prefetchers, disable preemption.
- Make CLOSNEW the active CLOS and touch the allocated memory to load
it into the cache.
- Set the previous CLOS as active.
- At this point the closid CLOSNEW can be released - the cache
pseudo-locked region is protected as long as its CBM does not appear in
any CAT allocation. Even though the cache pseudo-locked region will from
this point on not appear in any CBM of any CLOS an application running with
any CLOS will be able to access the memory in the pseudo-locked region since
the region continues to serve cache hits.
- The contiguous region of memory loaded into the cache is exposed to
user-space as a character device.
Cache pseudo-locking increases the probability that data will remain
in the cache via carefully configuring the CAT feature and controlling
application behavior. There is no guarantee that data is placed in
cache. Instructions like INVD, WBINVD, CLFLUSH, etc. can still evict
“locked” data from cache. Power management C-states may shrink or
power off cache. It is thus recommended to limit the processor maximum
C-state, for example, by setting the processor.max_cstate kernel parameter.
It is required that an application using a pseudo-locked region runs
with affinity to the cores (or a subset of the cores) associated
with the cache on which the pseudo-locked region resides. A sanity check
within the code will not allow an application to map pseudo-locked memory
unless it runs with affinity to cores associated with the cache on which the
pseudo-locked region resides. The sanity check is only done during the
initial mmap() handling, there is no enforcement afterwards and the
application self needs to ensure it remains affine to the correct cores.
Pseudo-locking is accomplished in two stages:
1) During the first stage the system administrator allocates a portion
of cache that should be dedicated to pseudo-locking. At this time an
equivalent portion of memory is allocated, loaded into allocated
cache portion, and exposed as a character device.
2) During the second stage a user-space application maps (mmap()) the
pseudo-locked memory into its address space.
Cache Pseudo-Locking Interface
------------------------------
A pseudo-locked region is created using the resctrl interface as follows:
1) Create a new resource group by creating a new directory in /sys/fs/resctrl.
2) Change the new resource group's mode to "pseudo-locksetup" by writing
"pseudo-locksetup" to the "mode" file.
3) Write the schemata of the pseudo-locked region to the "schemata" file. All
bits within the schemata should be "unused" according to the "bit_usage"
file.
On successful pseudo-locked region creation the "mode" file will contain
"pseudo-locked" and a new character device with the same name as the resource
group will exist in /dev/pseudo_lock. This character device can be mmap()'ed
by user space in order to obtain access to the pseudo-locked memory region.
An example of cache pseudo-locked region creation and usage can be found below.
Cache Pseudo-Locking Debugging Interface
---------------------------------------
The pseudo-locking debugging interface is enabled by default (if
CONFIG_DEBUG_FS is enabled) and can be found in /sys/kernel/debug/resctrl.
There is no explicit way for the kernel to test if a provided memory
location is present in the cache. The pseudo-locking debugging interface uses
the tracing infrastructure to provide two ways to measure cache residency of
the pseudo-locked region:
1) Memory access latency using the pseudo_lock_mem_latency tracepoint. Data
from these measurements are best visualized using a hist trigger (see
example below). In this test the pseudo-locked region is traversed at
a stride of 32 bytes while hardware prefetchers and preemption
are disabled. This also provides a substitute visualization of cache
hits and misses.
2) Cache hit and miss measurements using model specific precision counters if
available. Depending on the levels of cache on the system the pseudo_lock_l2
and pseudo_lock_l3 tracepoints are available.
WARNING: triggering this measurement uses from two (for just L2
measurements) to four (for L2 and L3 measurements) precision counters on
the system, if any other measurements are in progress the counters and
their corresponding event registers will be clobbered.
When a pseudo-locked region is created a new debugfs directory is created for
it in debugfs as /sys/kernel/debug/resctrl/<newdir>. A single
write-only file, pseudo_lock_measure, is present in this directory. The
measurement on the pseudo-locked region depends on the number, 1 or 2,
written to this debugfs file. Since the measurements are recorded with the
tracing infrastructure the relevant tracepoints need to be enabled before the
measurement is triggered.
Example of latency debugging interface:
In this example a pseudo-locked region named "newlock" was created. Here is
how we can measure the latency in cycles of reading from this region and
visualize this data with a histogram that is available if CONFIG_HIST_TRIGGERS
is set:
# :> /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/trace
# echo 'hist:keys=latency' > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/resctrl/pseudo_lock_mem_latency/trigger
# echo 1 > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/resctrl/pseudo_lock_mem_latency/enable
# echo 1 > /sys/kernel/debug/resctrl/newlock/pseudo_lock_measure
# echo 0 > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/resctrl/pseudo_lock_mem_latency/enable
# cat /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/resctrl/pseudo_lock_mem_latency/hist
# event histogram
#
# trigger info: hist:keys=latency:vals=hitcount:sort=hitcount:size=2048 [active]
#
{ latency: 456 } hitcount: 1
{ latency: 50 } hitcount: 83
{ latency: 36 } hitcount: 96
{ latency: 44 } hitcount: 174
{ latency: 48 } hitcount: 195
{ latency: 46 } hitcount: 262
{ latency: 42 } hitcount: 693
{ latency: 40 } hitcount: 3204
{ latency: 38 } hitcount: 3484
Totals:
Hits: 8192
Entries: 9
Dropped: 0
Example of cache hits/misses debugging:
In this example a pseudo-locked region named "newlock" was created on the L2
cache of a platform. Here is how we can obtain details of the cache hits
and misses using the platform's precision counters.
# :> /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/trace
# echo 1 > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/resctrl/pseudo_lock_l2/enable
# echo 2 > /sys/kernel/debug/resctrl/newlock/pseudo_lock_measure
# echo 0 > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/resctrl/pseudo_lock_l2/enable
# cat /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/trace
# tracer: nop
#
# _-----=> irqs-off
# / _----=> need-resched
# | / _---=> hardirq/softirq
# || / _--=> preempt-depth
# ||| / delay
# TASK-PID CPU# |||| TIMESTAMP FUNCTION
# | | | |||| | |
pseudo_lock_mea-1672 [002] .... 3132.860500: pseudo_lock_l2: hits=4097 miss=0
Examples for RDT allocation usage:
Example 1
@ -596,6 +771,107 @@ A resource group cannot be forced to overlap with an exclusive resource group:
# cat info/last_cmd_status
overlaps with exclusive group
Example of Cache Pseudo-Locking
-------------------------------
Lock portion of L2 cache from cache id 1 using CBM 0x3. Pseudo-locked
region is exposed at /dev/pseudo_lock/newlock that can be provided to
application for argument to mmap().
# mount -t resctrl resctrl /sys/fs/resctrl/
# cd /sys/fs/resctrl
Ensure that there are bits available that can be pseudo-locked, since only
unused bits can be pseudo-locked the bits to be pseudo-locked needs to be
removed from the default resource group's schemata:
# cat info/L2/bit_usage
0=SSSSSSSS;1=SSSSSSSS
# echo 'L2:1=0xfc' > schemata
# cat info/L2/bit_usage
0=SSSSSSSS;1=SSSSSS00
Create a new resource group that will be associated with the pseudo-locked
region, indicate that it will be used for a pseudo-locked region, and
configure the requested pseudo-locked region capacity bitmask:
# mkdir newlock
# echo pseudo-locksetup > newlock/mode
# echo 'L2:1=0x3' > newlock/schemata
On success the resource group's mode will change to pseudo-locked, the
bit_usage will reflect the pseudo-locked region, and the character device
exposing the pseudo-locked region will exist:
# cat newlock/mode
pseudo-locked
# cat info/L2/bit_usage
0=SSSSSSSS;1=SSSSSSPP
# ls -l /dev/pseudo_lock/newlock
crw------- 1 root root 243, 0 Apr 3 05:01 /dev/pseudo_lock/newlock
/*
* Example code to access one page of pseudo-locked cache region
* from user space.
*/
#define _GNU_SOURCE
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <sched.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <sys/mman.h>
/*
* It is required that the application runs with affinity to only
* cores associated with the pseudo-locked region. Here the cpu
* is hardcoded for convenience of example.
*/
static int cpuid = 2;
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
cpu_set_t cpuset;
long page_size;
void *mapping;
int dev_fd;
int ret;
page_size = sysconf(_SC_PAGESIZE);
CPU_ZERO(&cpuset);
CPU_SET(cpuid, &cpuset);
ret = sched_setaffinity(0, sizeof(cpuset), &cpuset);
if (ret < 0) {
perror("sched_setaffinity");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
dev_fd = open("/dev/pseudo_lock/newlock", O_RDWR);
if (dev_fd < 0) {
perror("open");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
mapping = mmap(0, page_size, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE, MAP_SHARED,
dev_fd, 0);
if (mapping == MAP_FAILED) {
perror("mmap");
close(dev_fd);
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
/* Application interacts with pseudo-locked memory @mapping */
ret = munmap(mapping, page_size);
if (ret < 0) {
perror("munmap");
close(dev_fd);
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
close(dev_fd);
exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}
Locking between applications
----------------------------