Courses/Computer Science/CPSC 457.F2013/Lecture Notes/Scheduling

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Process Scheduling

This session starts our discussion of concurrency in earnest, with particular attention to how the OS provides the illusion of concurrency.

Background / Link to Prior Topic

We've seen how the OS can transition from sequential code execution to concurrent execution; it:

  • initializes the scheduler
  • creates two processes (via do_fork and via sys_execve)
  • enables interrupts;
  • and then allows the newly created scheduler to begin choosing between these two processes.
  • In the meanwhile, one of the processes (the init process) begins creating children via do_fork() and sys_execve()

This procedure naturally brings up the question: as more processes are created, and some hundred or thousand processes come to exist, how does the OS choose which process should be given the CPU?

note: when I say "given the CPU", I mean "take the saved CPU state (i.e, register values, including the instruction pointer) and write it to the hardware registers, thus enabling the CPU to pick up executing the particular process). In this way, we can also develop another perspective on processes: we can see them as virtual CPUs --- not in the sense that they execute any code, but that they are executing the code of the program that has been loaded into the process address space.

The Topic

In this session, we will begin an examination of one of the central purposes of an "operating system" (be it a desktop OS or a distributed billing and customer service system): scheduling jobs / tasks / processes. After all, fundamentally, the number of virtual tasks that could exist on a system are typically much greater than the amount of physical resources (i.e., CPUs) available. How does the OS make one or a few CPUs look like dozens or hundreds?

Hence, the hardware (e.g., CPU, memory, and devices) must be multiplexed or shared across all virtual tasks present on the system. Tasks come and go mostly unpredictably. Scheduling deals with sharing these resources in a coherent fashion in the face of this dynamic load.

Focus Question

What support is necessary for deciding which program / process should run next (i.e., be given access and control over the CPU and other system devices)? Once we pick a strategy or approach for deciding on or picking the next process, is there any way to show that we are doing well at scheduling?

Agenda

Overview of scheduling considerations: fairness, efficiency, progress; scheduling metrics

time quanta, clock, preemption (basic hardware and low-level OS support for reliable timing)

process states (support needed for distinguishing between some characteristics of processes; meta-data that has an impact on determining what process is a candidate for being run)

types of processes (interactive vs. batch)

approaches to scheduling: random, FCFS, LJF, SJN, RR, UWRR, ... priority

priority inversion

context switch (tie back to time quanta)

comparing 2.4, 2.6, and CFS scheduler code

real-time scheduling

Notes

The slides for today:

Linux defines the symbol "current" to be a macro that resolves to the currently executing process (for example, the process that invoked a system call). Note, of course, that this symbols is only meaningful in process context, not interrupt context. See the current.h file, which derives the value of current from the CPU state.

There were many terms and key concepts presented in this session, among them:

  • preemption
  • time quantum
  • context switch
  • fairness, responsiveness
  • types of processes
  • example scheduling algorithms (know how to draw scheduling timelines)
  • metrics for comparing scheduling algorithms (know these)

The code for the CFS is at:

The code for part of the 2.6 O(1) scheduler (multi-level feedback queue) is at:

The relevant lines: 

5451
5452        put_prev_task(rq, prev);
5453        next = pick_next_task(rq);
5454

Of course, pick_next_task runs in constant time, but there is a lot more work hidden in there.

The code for (part) of the 2.4 scheduler (for 2.4.24) is here:

and the O(n) snippet is listed below: 

/*
 * Default process to select...
 */
       next = idle_task(this_cpu);
       c = -1000;
       list_for_each(tmp, &runqueue_head) {
               p = list_entry(tmp, struct task_struct, run_list);
               if (can_schedule(p, this_cpu)) {
                       int weight = goodness(p, this_cpu, prev->active_mm);
                       if (weight > c)
                               c = weight, next = p;
               }
       }

Scribe Notes

Readings

  • MOS: 2.4.1 "Introduction to Scheduling" (plus 2 intro paragraphs in S2.4)
  • MOS: 2.4.5 "Policy vs. Mechanism"
  • MOS: 10.3.4: "Scheduling in Linux" or LKD: Chapter 4 "Process Scheduling"
  • MOS: 2.7 "Summary" (this talks about some things we'll consider next)
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