Commit b351f0c7 authored by Josef Bacik's avatar Josef Bacik Committed by Jens Axboe

Documentation: add a doc for blk-iolatency

A basic documentation to describe the interface, statistics, and
behavior of io.latency.
Signed-off-by: default avatarJosef Bacik <jbacik@fb.com>
Signed-off-by: default avatarJens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk>
parent d7067512
......@@ -51,6 +51,9 @@ v1 is available under Documentation/cgroup-v1/.
5-3. IO
5-3-1. IO Interface Files
5-3-2. Writeback
5-3-3. IO Latency
5-3-3-1. How IO Latency Throttling Works
5-3-3-2. IO Latency Interface Files
5-4. PID
5-4-1. PID Interface Files
5-5. Device
......@@ -1446,6 +1449,82 @@ writeback as follows.
vm.dirty[_background]_ratio.
IO Latency
~~~~~~~~~~
This is a cgroup v2 controller for IO workload protection. You provide a group
with a latency target, and if the average latency exceeds that target the
controller will throttle any peers that have a lower latency target than the
protected workload.
The limits are only applied at the peer level in the hierarchy. This means that
in the diagram below, only groups A, B, and C will influence each other, and
groups D and F will influence each other. Group G will influence nobody.
[root]
/ | \
A B C
/ \ |
D F G
So the ideal way to configure this is to set io.latency in groups A, B, and C.
Generally you do not want to set a value lower than the latency your device
supports. Experiment to find the value that works best for your workload.
Start at higher than the expected latency for your device and watch the
total_lat_avg value in io.stat for your workload group to get an idea of the
latency you see during normal operation. Use this value as a basis for your
real setting, setting at 10-15% higher than the value in io.stat.
Experimentation is key here because total_lat_avg is a running total, so is the
"statistics" portion of "lies, damned lies, and statistics."
How IO Latency Throttling Works
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
io.latency is work conserving; so as long as everybody is meeting their latency
target the controller doesn't do anything. Once a group starts missing its
target it begins throttling any peer group that has a higher target than itself.
This throttling takes 2 forms:
- Queue depth throttling. This is the number of outstanding IO's a group is
allowed to have. We will clamp down relatively quickly, starting at no limit
and going all the way down to 1 IO at a time.
- Artificial delay induction. There are certain types of IO that cannot be
throttled without possibly adversely affecting higher priority groups. This
includes swapping and metadata IO. These types of IO are allowed to occur
normally, however they are "charged" to the originating group. If the
originating group is being throttled you will see the use_delay and delay
fields in io.stat increase. The delay value is how many microseconds that are
being added to any process that runs in this group. Because this number can
grow quite large if there is a lot of swapping or metadata IO occurring we
limit the individual delay events to 1 second at a time.
Once the victimized group starts meeting its latency target again it will start
unthrottling any peer groups that were throttled previously. If the victimized
group simply stops doing IO the global counter will unthrottle appropriately.
IO Latency Interface Files
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
io.latency
This takes a similar format as the other controllers.
"MAJOR:MINOR target=<target time in microseconds"
io.stat
If the controller is enabled you will see extra stats in io.stat in
addition to the normal ones.
depth
This is the current queue depth for the group.
avg_lat
The running average IO latency for this group in microseconds.
Running average is generally flawed, but will give an
administrator a general idea of the overall latency they can
expect for their workload on the given disk.
PID
---
......
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