=============
                        CFS Scheduler
                        =============

  1.  OVERVIEW
  
  CFS stands for "Completely Fair Scheduler," and is the new "desktop" process
  scheduler implemented by Ingo Molnar and merged in Linux 2.6.23.  It is the
  replacement for the previous vanilla scheduler's SCHED_OTHER interactivity
  code.
  
  80% of CFS's design can be summed up in a single sentence: CFS basically models
  an "ideal, precise multi-tasking CPU" on real hardware.
  
  "Ideal multi-tasking CPU" is a (non-existent  :-)) CPU that has 100% physical
  power and which can run each task at precise equal speed, in parallel, each at
  1/nr_running speed.  For example: if there are 2 tasks running, then it runs
  each at 50% physical power --- i.e., actually in parallel.
  
  On real hardware, we can run only a single task at once, so we have to
  introduce the concept of "virtual runtime."  The virtual runtime of a task
  specifies when its next timeslice would start execution on the ideal
  multi-tasking CPU described above.  In practice, the virtual runtime of a task
  is its actual runtime normalized to the total number of running tasks.
  
  
  
  2.  FEW IMPLEMENTATION DETAILS
  
  In CFS the virtual runtime is expressed and tracked via the per-task
  p->se.vruntime (nanosec-unit) value.  This way, it's possible to accurately
  timestamp and measure the "expected CPU time" a task should have gotten.
  
  [ small detail: on "ideal" hardware, at any time all tasks would have the same
    p->se.vruntime value --- i.e., tasks would execute simultaneously and no task
    would ever get "out of balance" from the "ideal" share of CPU time.  ]
  
  CFS's task picking logic is based on this p->se.vruntime value and it is thus
  very simple: it always tries to run the task with the smallest p->se.vruntime
  value (i.e., the task which executed least so far).  CFS always tries to split
  up CPU time between runnable tasks as close to "ideal multitasking hardware" as
  possible.
  
  Most of the rest of CFS's design just falls out of this really simple concept,
  with a few add-on embellishments like nice levels, multiprocessing and various
  algorithm variants to recognize sleepers.
  
  
  
  3.  THE RBTREE
  
  CFS's design is quite radical: it does not use the old data structures for the
  runqueues, but it uses a time-ordered rbtree to build a "timeline" of future
  task execution, and thus has no "array switch" artifacts (by which both the
  previous vanilla scheduler and RSDL/SD are affected).
  
  CFS also maintains the rq->cfs.min_vruntime value, which is a monotonic
  increasing value tracking the smallest vruntime among all tasks in the
  runqueue.  The total amount of work done by the system is tracked using
  min_vruntime; that value is used to place newly activated entities on the left
  side of the tree as much as possible.
  
  The total number of running tasks in the runqueue is accounted through the
  rq->cfs.load value, which is the sum of the weights of the tasks queued on the
  runqueue.
  
  CFS maintains a time-ordered rbtree, where all runnable tasks are sorted by the

  p->se.vruntime key. CFS picks the "leftmost" task from this tree and sticks to it.

  As the system progresses forwards, the executed tasks are put into the tree
  more and more to the right --- slowly but surely giving a chance for every task
  to become the "leftmost task" and thus get on the CPU within a deterministic
  amount of time.
  
  Summing up, CFS works like this: it runs a task a bit, and when the task
  schedules (or a scheduler tick happens) the task's CPU usage is "accounted
  for": the (small) time it just spent using the physical CPU is added to
  p->se.vruntime.  Once p->se.vruntime gets high enough so that another task
  becomes the "leftmost task" of the time-ordered rbtree it maintains (plus a
  small amount of "granularity" distance relative to the leftmost task so that we
  do not over-schedule tasks and trash the cache), then the new leftmost task is
  picked and the current task is preempted.
  
  
  
  4.  SOME FEATURES OF CFS
  
  CFS uses nanosecond granularity accounting and does not rely on any jiffies or
  other HZ detail.  Thus the CFS scheduler has no notion of "timeslices" in the
  way the previous scheduler had, and has no heuristics whatsoever.  There is
  only one central tunable (you have to switch on CONFIG_SCHED_DEBUG):

     /proc/sys/kernel/sched_min_granularity_ns

  
  which can be used to tune the scheduler from "desktop" (i.e., low latencies) to
  "server" (i.e., good batching) workloads.  It defaults to a setting suitable
  for desktop workloads.  SCHED_BATCH is handled by the CFS scheduler module too.
  
  Due to its design, the CFS scheduler is not prone to any of the "attacks" that
  exist today against the heuristics of the stock scheduler: fiftyp.c, thud.c,
  chew.c, ring-test.c, massive_intr.c all work fine and do not impact
  interactivity and produce the expected behavior.
  
  The CFS scheduler has a much stronger handling of nice levels and SCHED_BATCH
  than the previous vanilla scheduler: both types of workloads are isolated much
  more aggressively.
  
  SMP load-balancing has been reworked/sanitized: the runqueue-walking
  assumptions are gone from the load-balancing code now, and iterators of the
  scheduling modules are used.  The balancing code got quite a bit simpler as a
  result.

  5. Scheduling policies
  
  CFS implements three scheduling policies:
  
    - SCHED_NORMAL (traditionally called SCHED_OTHER): The scheduling
      policy that is used for regular tasks.
  
    - SCHED_BATCH: Does not preempt nearly as often as regular tasks
      would, thereby allowing tasks to run longer and make better use of
      caches but at the cost of interactivity. This is well suited for
      batch jobs.
  
    - SCHED_IDLE: This is even weaker than nice 19, but its not a true
      idle timer scheduler in order to avoid to get into priority
      inversion problems which would deadlock the machine.

  SCHED_FIFO/_RR are implemented in sched/rt.c and are as specified by

  POSIX.
  
  The command chrt from util-linux-ng 2.13.1.1 can set all of these except
  SCHED_IDLE.
  
  
  
  6.  SCHEDULING CLASSES

  
  The new CFS scheduler has been designed in such a way to introduce "Scheduling
  Classes," an extensible hierarchy of scheduler modules.  These modules
  encapsulate scheduling policy details and are handled by the scheduler core
  without the core code assuming too much about them.

  sched/fair.c implements the CFS scheduler described above.

  sched/rt.c implements SCHED_FIFO and SCHED_RR semantics, in a simpler way than

  the previous vanilla scheduler did.  It uses 100 runqueues (for all 100 RT
  priority levels, instead of 140 in the previous scheduler) and it needs no
  expired array.

  Scheduling classes are implemented through the sched_class structure, which
  contains hooks to functions that must be called whenever an interesting event
  occurs.
  
  This is the (partial) list of the hooks:
  
   - enqueue_task(...)
  
     Called when a task enters a runnable state.
     It puts the scheduling entity (task) into the red-black tree and
     increments the nr_running variable.

   - dequeue_task(...)

  
     When a task is no longer runnable, this function is called to keep the
     corresponding scheduling entity out of the red-black tree.  It decrements
     the nr_running variable.
  
   - yield_task(...)
  
     This function is basically just a dequeue followed by an enqueue, unless the
     compat_yield sysctl is turned on; in that case, it places the scheduling
     entity at the right-most end of the red-black tree.
  
   - check_preempt_curr(...)
  
     This function checks if a task that entered the runnable state should
     preempt the currently running task.
  
   - pick_next_task(...)
  
     This function chooses the most appropriate task eligible to run next.
  
   - set_curr_task(...)
  
     This function is called when a task changes its scheduling class or changes
     its task group.
  
   - task_tick(...)
  
     This function is mostly called from time tick functions; it might lead to
     process switch.  This drives the running preemption.

  7.  GROUP SCHEDULER EXTENSIONS TO CFS

  
  Normally, the scheduler operates on individual tasks and strives to provide
  fair CPU time to each task.  Sometimes, it may be desirable to group tasks and
  provide fair CPU time to each such task group.  For example, it may be
  desirable to first provide fair CPU time to each user on the system and then to
  each task belonging to a user.

  CONFIG_CGROUP_SCHED strives to achieve exactly that.  It lets tasks to be

  grouped and divides CPU time fairly among such groups.
  
  CONFIG_RT_GROUP_SCHED permits to group real-time (i.e., SCHED_FIFO and
  SCHED_RR) tasks.
  
  CONFIG_FAIR_GROUP_SCHED permits to group CFS (i.e., SCHED_NORMAL and
  SCHED_BATCH) tasks.

     These options need CONFIG_CGROUPS to be defined, and let the administrator

     create arbitrary groups of tasks, using the "cgroup" pseudo filesystem.  See

     Documentation/cgroups/cgroups.txt for more information about this filesystem.

  When CONFIG_FAIR_GROUP_SCHED is defined, a "cpu.shares" file is created for each

  group created using the pseudo filesystem.  See example steps below to create
  task groups and modify their CPU share using the "cgroups" pseudo filesystem.

  	# mount -t tmpfs cgroup_root /sys/fs/cgroup
  	# mkdir /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu
  	# mount -t cgroup -ocpu none /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu
  	# cd /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu

  
  	# mkdir multimedia	# create "multimedia" group of tasks
  	# mkdir browser		# create "browser" group of tasks
  
  	# #Configure the multimedia group to receive twice the CPU bandwidth
  	# #that of browser group
  
  	# echo 2048 > multimedia/cpu.shares
  	# echo 1024 > browser/cpu.shares
  
  	# firefox &	# Launch firefox and move it to "browser" group
  	# echo <firefox_pid> > browser/tasks
  
  	# #Launch gmplayer (or your favourite movie player)
  	# echo <movie_player_pid> > multimedia/tasks