sched (7) - Linux Manuals
sched: overview of CPU scheduling
NAME
sched - overview of CPU scheduling
DESCRIPTION
Since Linux 2.6.23, the default scheduler is CFS, the "Completely Fair Scheduler". The CFS scheduler replaced the earlier "O(1)" scheduler.API summary
Linux provides the following system calls for controlling the CPU scheduling behavior, policy, and priority of processes (or, more precisely, threads).- nice(2)
- Set a new nice value for the calling thread, and return the new nice value.
- getpriority(2)
- Return the nice value of a thread, a process group, or the set of threads owned by a specified user.
- setpriority(2)
- Set the nice value of a thread, a process group, or the set of threads owned by a specified user.
- sched_setscheduler(2)
- Set the scheduling policy and parameters of a specified thread.
- sched_getscheduler(2)
- Return the scheduling policy of a specified thread.
- sched_setparam(2)
- Set the scheduling parameters of a specified thread.
- sched_getparam(2)
- Fetch the scheduling parameters of a specified thread.
- sched_get_priority_max(2)
- Return the maximum priority available in a specified scheduling policy.
- sched_get_priority_min(2)
- Return the minimum priority available in a specified scheduling policy.
- sched_rr_get_interval(2)
- Fetch the quantum used for threads that are scheduled under the "round-robin" scheduling policy.
- sched_yield(2)
- Cause the caller to relinquish the CPU, so that some other thread be executed.
- sched_setaffinity(2)
- (Linux-specific) Set the CPU affinity of a specified thread.
- sched_getaffinity(2)
- (Linux-specific) Get the CPU affinity of a specified thread.
- sched_setattr(2)
- Set the scheduling policy and parameters of a specified thread. This (Linux-specific) system call provides a superset of the functionality of sched_setscheduler(2) and sched_setparam(2).
- sched_getattr(2)
- Fetch the scheduling policy and parameters of a specified thread. This (Linux-specific) system call provides a superset of the functionality of sched_getscheduler(2) and sched_getparam(2).
Scheduling policies
The scheduler is the kernel component that decides which runnable thread will be executed by the CPU next. Each thread has an associated scheduling policy and a static scheduling priority, sched_priority. The scheduler makes its decisions based on knowledge of the scheduling policy and static priority of all threads on the system.For threads scheduled under one of the normal scheduling policies (SCHED_OTHER, SCHED_IDLE, SCHED_BATCH), sched_priority is not used in scheduling decisions (it must be specified as 0).
Processes scheduled under one of the real-time policies (SCHED_FIFO, SCHED_RR) have a sched_priority value in the range 1 (low) to 99 (high). (As the numbers imply, real-time threads always have higher priority than normal threads.) Note well: POSIX.1 requires an implementation to support only a minimum 32 distinct priority levels for the real-time policies, and some systems supply just this minimum. Portable programs should use sched_get_priority_min(2) and sched_get_priority_max(2) to find the range of priorities supported for a particular policy.
Conceptually, the scheduler maintains a list of runnable threads for each possible sched_priority value. In order to determine which thread runs next, the scheduler looks for the nonempty list with the highest static priority and selects the thread at the head of this list.
A thread's scheduling policy determines where it will be inserted into the list of threads with equal static priority and how it will move inside this list.
All scheduling is preemptive: if a thread with a higher static priority becomes ready to run, the currently running thread will be preempted and returned to the wait list for its static priority level. The scheduling policy determines the ordering only within the list of runnable threads with equal static priority.
SCHED_FIFO: First in-first out scheduling
SCHED_FIFO can be used only with static priorities higher than 0, which means that when a SCHED_FIFO thread becomes runnable, it will always immediately preempt any currently running SCHED_OTHER, SCHED_BATCH, or SCHED_IDLE thread. SCHED_FIFO is a simple scheduling algorithm without time slicing. For threads scheduled under the SCHED_FIFO policy, the following rules apply:- 1)
- A running SCHED_FIFO thread that has been preempted by another thread of higher priority will stay at the head of the list for its priority and will resume execution as soon as all threads of higher priority are blocked again.
- 2)
- When a blocked SCHED_FIFO thread becomes runnable, it will be inserted at the end of the list for its priority.
- 3)
-
If a call to
sched_setscheduler(2),
sched_setparam(2),
sched_setattr(2),
pthread_setschedparam(3),
or
pthread_setschedprio(3)
changes the priority of the running or runnable
SCHED_FIFO
thread identified by
pid
the effect on the thread's position in the list depends on
the direction of the change to threads priority:
-
- •
- If the thread's priority is raised, it is placed at the end of the list for its new priority. As a consequence, it may preempt a currently running thread with the same priority.
- •
- If the thread's priority is unchanged, its position in the run list is unchanged.
- •
- If the thread's priority is lowered, it is placed at the front of the list for its new priority.
-
- According to POSIX.1-2008, changes to a thread's priority (or policy) using any mechanism other than pthread_setschedprio(3) should result in the thread being placed at the end of the list for its priority.
- 4)
- A thread calling sched_yield(2) will be put at the end of the list.
No other events will move a thread scheduled under the SCHED_FIFO policy in the wait list of runnable threads with equal static priority.
A SCHED_FIFO thread runs until either it is blocked by an I/O request, it is preempted by a higher priority thread, or it calls sched_yield(2).
SCHED_RR: Round-robin scheduling
SCHED_RR is a simple enhancement of SCHED_FIFO. Everything described above for SCHED_FIFO also applies to SCHED_RR, except that each thread is allowed to run only for a maximum time quantum. If a SCHED_RR thread has been running for a time period equal to or longer than the time quantum, it will be put at the end of the list for its priority. A SCHED_RR thread that has been preempted by a higher priority thread and subsequently resumes execution as a running thread will complete the unexpired portion of its round-robin time quantum. The length of the time quantum can be retrieved using sched_rr_get_interval(2).SCHED_DEADLINE: Sporadic task model deadline scheduling
Since version 3.14, Linux provides a deadline scheduling policy (SCHED_DEADLINE). This policy is currently implemented using GEDF (Global Earliest Deadline First) in conjunction with CBS (Constant Bandwidth Server). To set and fetch this policy and associated attributes, one must use the Linux-specific sched_setattr(2) and sched_getattr(2) system calls.A sporadic task is one that has a sequence of jobs, where each job is activated at most once per period. Each job also has a relative deadline, before which it should finish execution, and a computation time, which is the CPU time necessary for executing the job. The moment when a task wakes up because a new job has to be executed is called the arrival time (also referred to as the request time or release time). The start time is the time at which a task starts its execution. The absolute deadline is thus obtained by adding the relative deadline to the arrival time.
The following diagram clarifies these terms:
arrival/wakeup absolute deadline
When setting a
SCHED_DEADLINE
policy for a thread using
sched_setattr(2),
one can specify three parameters:
Runtime,
Deadline,
and
Period.
These parameters do not necessarily correspond to the aforementioned terms:
usual practice is to set Runtime to something bigger than the average
computation time (or worst-case execution time for hard real-time tasks),
Deadline to the relative deadline, and Period to the period of the task.
Thus, for
SCHED_DEADLINE
scheduling, we have:
arrival/wakeup absolute deadline
The three deadline-scheduling parameters correspond to the
sched_runtime,
sched_deadline,
and
sched_period
fields of the
sched_attr
structure; see
sched_setattr(2).
These fields express values in nanoseconds.
If
sched_period
is specified as 0, then it is made the same as
sched_deadline.
The kernel requires that:
In addition, under the current implementation,
all of the parameter values must be at least 1024
(i.e., just over one microsecond,
which is the resolution of the implementation), and less than 2^63.
If any of these checks fails,
sched_setattr(2)
fails with the error
EINVAL.
The CBS guarantees non-interference between tasks, by throttling
threads that attempt to over-run their specified Runtime.
To ensure deadline scheduling guarantees,
the kernel must prevent situations where the set of
SCHED_DEADLINE
threads is not feasible (schedulable) within the given constraints.
The kernel thus performs an admittance test when setting or changing
SCHED_DEADLINE
policy and attributes.
This admission test calculates whether the change is feasible;
if it is not,
sched_setattr(2)
fails with the error
EBUSY.
For example, it is required (but not necessarily sufficient) for
the total utilization to be less than or equal to the total number of
CPUs available, where, since each thread can maximally run for
Runtime per Period, that thread's utilization is its
Runtime divided by its Period.
In order to fulfill the guarantees that are made when
a thread is admitted to the
SCHED_DEADLINE
policy,
SCHED_DEADLINE
threads are the highest priority (user controllable) threads in the
system; if any
SCHED_DEADLINE
thread is runnable,
it will preempt any thread scheduled under one of the other policies.
A call to
fork(2)
by a thread scheduled under the
SCHED_DEADLINE
policy fails with the error
EAGAIN,
unless the thread has its reset-on-fork flag set (see below).
A
SCHED_DEADLINE
thread that calls
sched_yield(2)
will yield the current job and wait for a new period to begin.
The thread to run is chosen from the static
priority 0 list based on a dynamic priority that is determined only
inside this list.
The dynamic priority is based on the nice value (see below)
and is increased for each time quantum the thread is ready to run,
but denied to run by the scheduler.
This ensures fair progress among all SCHED_OTHER threads.
In the Linux kernel source code, the
SCHED_OTHER
policy is actually named
SCHED_NORMAL.
According to POSIX.1, the nice value is a per-process attribute;
that is, the threads in a process should share a nice value.
However, on Linux, the nice value is a per-thread attribute:
different threads in the same process may have different nice values.
The range of the nice value
varies across UNIX systems.
On modern Linux, the range is -20 (high priority) to +19 (low priority).
On some other systems, the range is -20..20.
Very early Linux kernels (Before Linux 2.0) had the range -infinity..15.
The degree to which the nice value affects the relative scheduling of
SCHED_OTHER
processes likewise varies across UNIX systems and
across Linux kernel versions.
With the advent of the CFS scheduler in kernel 2.6.23,
Linux adopted an algorithm that causes
relative differences in nice values to have a much stronger effect.
In the current implementation, each unit of difference in the
nice values of two processes results in a factor of 1.25
in the degree to which the scheduler favors the higher priority process.
This causes very low nice values (+19) to truly provide little CPU
to a process whenever there is any other
higher priority load on the system,
and makes high nice values (-20) deliver most of the CPU to applications
that require it (e.g., some audio applications).
On Linux, the
RLIMIT_NICE
resource limit can be used to define a limit to which
an unprivileged process's nice value can be raised; see
setrlimit(2)
for details.
For further details on the nice value, see the subsections on
the autogroup feature and group scheduling, below.
This policy is useful for workloads that are noninteractive,
but do not want to lower their nice value,
and for workloads that want a deterministic scheduling policy without
interactivity causing extra preemptions (between the workload's tasks).
This policy is intended for running jobs at extremely low
priority (lower even than a +19 nice value with the
SCHED_OTHER
or
SCHED_BATCH
policies).
Note that the constants used with these two APIs have different names.
The state of the reset-on-fork flag can analogously be retrieved using
sched_getscheduler(2)
and
sched_getattr(2).
The reset-on-fork feature is intended for media-playback applications,
and can be used to prevent applications evading the
RLIMIT_RTTIME
resource limit (see
getrlimit(2))
by creating multiple child processes.
More precisely, if the reset-on-fork flag is set,
the following rules apply for subsequently created children:
After the reset-on-fork flag has been enabled,
it can be reset only if the thread has the
CAP_SYS_NICE
capability.
This flag is disabled in child processes created by
fork(2).
A thread must be privileged
(CAP_SYS_NICE)
in order to set or modify a
SCHED_DEADLINE
policy.
Since Linux 2.6.12, the
RLIMIT_RTPRIO
resource limit defines a ceiling on an unprivileged thread's
static priority for the
SCHED_RR
and
SCHED_FIFO
policies.
The rules for changing scheduling policy and priority are as follows:
Privileged
(CAP_SYS_NICE)
threads ignore the
RLIMIT_RTPRIO
limit; as with older kernels,
they can make arbitrary changes to scheduling policy and priority.
See
getrlimit(2)
for further information on
RLIMIT_RTPRIO.
Since Linux 2.6.25, there are other techniques for dealing with runaway
real-time and deadline processes.
One of these is to use the
RLIMIT_RTTIME
resource limit to set a ceiling on the CPU time that
a real-time process may consume.
See
getrlimit(2)
for details.
Since version 2.6.25, Linux also provides two
/proc
files that can be used to reserve a certain amount of CPU time
to be used by non-real-time processes.
Reserving CPU time in this fashion allows some CPU time to be
allocated to (say) a root shell that can be used to kill a runaway process.
Both of these files specify time values in microseconds:
Memory locking is usually needed for real-time processes to avoid
paging delays; this can be done with
mlock(2)
or
mlockall(2).
This feature operates in conjunction with the
CFS scheduler and requires a kernel that is configured with
CONFIG_SCHED_AUTOGROUP.
On a running system, this feature is enabled or disabled via the file
/proc/sys/kernel/sched_autogroup_enabled;
a value of 0 disables the feature, while a value of 1 enables it.
The default value in this file is 1, unless the kernel was booted with the
noautogroup
parameter.
A new autogroup is created when a new session is created via
setsid(2);
this happens, for example, when a new terminal window is started.
A new process created by
fork(2)
inherits its parent's autogroup membership.
Thus, all of the processes in a session are members of the same autogroup.
An autogroup is automatically destroyed when the last process
in the group terminates.
When autogrouping is enabled, all of the members of an autogroup
are placed in the same kernel scheduler "task group".
The CFS scheduler employs an algorithm that equalizes the
distribution of CPU cycles across task groups.
The benefits of this for interactive desktop performance
can be described via the following example.
Suppose that there are two autogroups competing for the same CPU
(i.e., presume either a single CPU system or the use of
taskset(1)
to confine all the processes to the same CPU on an SMP system).
The first group contains ten CPU-bound processes from
a kernel build started with
make -j10.
The other contains a single CPU-bound process: a video player.
The effect of autogrouping is that the two groups will
each receive half of the CPU cycles.
That is, the video player will receive 50% of the CPU cycles,
rather than just 9% of the cycles,
which would likely lead to degraded video playback.
The situation on an SMP system is more complex,
but the general effect is the same:
the scheduler distributes CPU cycles across task groups such that
an autogroup that contains a large number of CPU-bound processes
does not end up hogging CPU cycles at the expense of the other
jobs on the system.
A process's autogroup (task group) membership can be viewed via the file
/proc/[pid]/autogroup:
$ cat /proc/1/autogroup
/autogroup-1 nice 0
This file can also be used to modify the CPU bandwidth allocated
to an autogroup.
This is done by writing a number in the "nice" range to the file
to set the autogroup's nice value.
The allowed range is from +19 (low priority) to -20 (high priority).
(Writing values outside of this range causes
write(2)
to fail with the error
EINVAL.)
The autogroup nice setting has the same meaning as the process nice value,
but applies to distribution of CPU cycles to the autogroup as a whole,
based on the relative nice values of other autogroups.
For a process inside an autogroup, the CPU cycles that it receives
will be a product of the autogroup's nice value
(compared to other autogroups)
and the process's nice value
(compared to other processes in the same autogroup.
The use of the
cgroups(7)
CPU controller to place processes in cgroups other than the
root CPU cgroup overrides the effect of autogrouping.
The autogroup feature groups only processes scheduled under
non-real-time policies
(SCHED_OTHER,
SCHED_BATCH,
and
SCHED_IDLE).
It does not group processes scheduled under real-time and
deadline policies.
Those processes are scheduled according to the rules described earlier.
Under group scheduling, threads are scheduled in "task groups".
Task groups have a hierarchical relationship,
rooted under the initial task group on the system,
known as the "root task group".
Task groups are formed in the following circumstances:
Under group scheduling,
a thread's nice value has an effect for scheduling decisions
only relative to other threads in the same task group.
This has some surprising consequences in terms of the traditional semantics
of the nice value on UNIX systems.
In particular, if autogrouping
is enabled (which is the default in various distributions), then employing
setpriority(2)
or
nice(1)
on a process has an effect only for scheduling relative
to other processes executed in the same session
(typically: the same terminal window).
Conversely, for two processes that are (for example)
the sole CPU-bound processes in different sessions
(e.g., different terminal windows,
each of whose jobs are tied to different autogroups),
modifying the nice value of the process in one of the sessions
has no effect
in terms of the scheduler's decisions relative to the
process in the other session.
A possibly useful workaround here is to use a command such as
the following to modify the autogroup nice value for
all
of the processes in a terminal session:
$ echo 10 > /proc/self/autogroup
patch-kernelversion-rtpatchversion
and can be downloaded from
Without the patches and prior to their full inclusion into the mainline
kernel, the kernel configuration offers only the three preemption classes
CONFIG_PREEMPT_NONE,
CONFIG_PREEMPT_VOLUNTARY,
and
CONFIG_PREEMPT_DESKTOP
which respectively provide no, some, and considerable
reduction of the worst-case scheduling latency.
With the patches applied or after their full inclusion into the mainline
kernel, the additional configuration item
CONFIG_PREEMPT_RT
becomes available.
If this is selected, Linux is transformed into a regular
real-time operating system.
The FIFO and RR scheduling policies are then used to run a thread
with true real-time priority and a minimum worst-case scheduling latency.
Originally, Standard Linux was intended as a general-purpose operating
system being able to handle background processes, interactive
applications, and less demanding real-time applications (applications that
need to usually meet timing deadlines).
Although the Linux kernel 2.6
allowed for kernel preemption and the newly introduced O(1) scheduler
ensures that the time needed to schedule is fixed and deterministic
irrespective of the number of active tasks, true real-time computing
was not possible up to kernel version 2.6.17.
Programming for the real world - POSIX.4
by Bill O. Gallmeister, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., ISBN 1-56592-074-0.
The Linux kernel source files
Documentation/scheduler/sched-deadline.txt,
Documentation/scheduler/sched-rt-group.txt,
Documentation/scheduler/sched-design-CFS.txt,
and
Documentation/scheduler/sched-nice-design.txt
SCHED_OTHER: Default Linux time-sharing scheduling
SCHED_OTHER can be used at only static priority 0
(i.e., threads under real-time policies always have priority over
SCHED_OTHER
processes).
SCHED_OTHER is the standard Linux time-sharing scheduler that is
intended for all threads that do not require the special
real-time mechanisms.
The nice value
The nice value is an attribute
that can be used to influence the CPU scheduler to
favor or disfavor a process in scheduling decisions.
It affects the scheduling of
SCHED_OTHER
and
SCHED_BATCH
(see below) processes.
The nice value can be modified using
nice(2),
setpriority(2),
or
sched_setattr(2).
SCHED_BATCH: Scheduling batch processes
(Since Linux 2.6.16.)
SCHED_BATCH can be used only at static priority 0.
This policy is similar to SCHED_OTHER in that it schedules
the thread according to its dynamic priority
(based on the nice value).
The difference is that this policy
will cause the scheduler to always assume
that the thread is CPU-intensive.
Consequently, the scheduler will apply a small scheduling
penalty with respect to wakeup behavior,
so that this thread is mildly disfavored in scheduling decisions.
SCHED_IDLE: Scheduling very low priority jobs
(Since Linux 2.6.23.)
SCHED_IDLE can be used only at static priority 0;
the process nice value has no influence for this policy.
Resetting scheduling policy for child processes
Each thread has a reset-on-fork scheduling flag.
When this flag is set, children created by
fork(2)
do not inherit privileged scheduling policies.
The reset-on-fork flag can be set by either:
Privileges and resource limits
In Linux kernels before 2.6.12, only privileged
(CAP_SYS_NICE)
threads can set a nonzero static priority (i.e., set a real-time
scheduling policy).
The only change that an unprivileged thread can make is to set the
SCHED_OTHER
policy, and this can be done only if the effective user ID of the caller
matches the real or effective user ID of the target thread
(i.e., the thread specified by
pid)
whose policy is being changed.
Limiting the CPU usage of real-time and deadline processes
A nonblocking infinite loop in a thread scheduled under the
SCHED_FIFO,
SCHED_RR,
or
SCHED_DEADLINE
policy can potentially block all other threads from accessing
the CPU forever.
Prior to Linux 2.6.25, the only way of preventing a runaway real-time
process from freezing the system was to run (at the console)
a shell scheduled under a higher static priority than the tested application.
This allows an emergency kill of tested
real-time applications that do not block or terminate as expected.
Response time
A blocked high priority thread waiting for I/O has a certain
response time before it is scheduled again.
The device driver writer
can greatly reduce this response time by using a "slow interrupt"
interrupt handler.
Miscellaneous
Child processes inherit the scheduling policy and parameters across a
fork(2).
The scheduling policy and parameters are preserved across
execve(2).
The autogroup feature
Since Linux 2.6.38,
the kernel provides a feature known as autogrouping to improve interactive
desktop performance in the face of multiprocess, CPU-intensive
workloads such as building the Linux kernel with large numbers of
parallel build processes (i.e., the
make(1)
-j
flag).
The nice value and group scheduling
When scheduling non-real-time processes (i.e., those scheduled under the
SCHED_OTHER,
SCHED_BATCH,
and
SCHED_IDLE
policies), the CFS scheduler employs a technique known as "group scheduling",
if the kernel was configured with the
CONFIG_FAIR_GROUP_SCHED
option (which is typical).
Real-time features in the mainline Linux kernel
Since kernel version 2.6.18, Linux is gradually
becoming equipped with real-time capabilities,
most of which are derived from the former
realtime-preempt
patch set.
Until the patches have been completely merged into the
mainline kernel,
they must be installed to achieve the best real-time performance.
These patches are named:
NOTES
The
cgroups(7)
CPU controller can be used to limit the CPU consumption of
groups of processes.
COLOPHON
This page is part of release 5.10 of the Linux
man-pages
project.
A description of the project,
information about reporting bugs,
and the latest version of this page,
can be found at
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
SEE ALSO
chcpu(1),
chrt(1),
lscpu(1),
ps(1),
taskset(1),
top(1),
getpriority(2),
mlock(2),
mlockall(2),
munlock(2),
munlockall(2),
nice(2),
sched_get_priority_max(2),
sched_get_priority_min(2),
sched_getaffinity(2),
sched_getparam(2),
sched_getscheduler(2),
sched_rr_get_interval(2),
sched_setaffinity(2),
sched_setparam(2),
sched_setscheduler(2),
sched_yield(2),
setpriority(2),
pthread_getaffinity_np(3),
pthread_getschedparam(3),
pthread_setaffinity_np(3),
sched_getcpu(3),
capabilities(7),
cpuset(7)