Why is an infinite loop sleeping mostly on an isolated core?

Issues related to applications and software problems and general support
Post Reply
avatli
Posts: 1
Joined: 2020/01/03 07:45:11

Why is an infinite loop sleeping mostly on an isolated core?

Post by avatli » 2020/01/03 07:52:50

I tried the following code to give all execution time by isolating CPU on Centos 8.

Code: Select all

    #include <inttypes.h>
    #include <pthread.h>
    #include <sched.h>

    int main()
    {
        volatile uint32_t i = 0;

        cpu_set_t cpuset;
        CPU_ZERO(&cpuset);
        CPU_SET(15, &cpuset);

        pthread_t thread = pthread_self();

        int status = pthread_setaffinity_np(thread, sizeof(cpu_set_t), &cpuset);
        // ... error checking ..

        while (1) {
            i++;
        }

        return 0;
    }
However, the output of **top** command shows that the 15th CPU is in sleeping state mostly as below

Code: Select all

    Tasks: 287 total,   2 running, 285 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
    ...
    %Cpu15 :  0.0 us,  0.0 sy,  0.0 ni,100.0 id,  0.0 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
    ...
Also the time output shows me the application uses the CPU only half of its time. Who uses the other half?

Code: Select all

    time ./cpu_test.out 
    ^C
    real	0m10.984s
    user	0m5.494s
    sys	    0m0.000s
I'm using the following settings:

Code: Select all

    kernel-4.18.0-80.11.2.el8_0.x86_64
    CentOS Linux release 8.0.1905

    # cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/isolated
    2-17

    # cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/present
    0-17

    # cat /proc/cmdline 
    BOOT_IMAGE=(hd0,msdos1)/vmlinuz-4.18.0-80.11.2.el8_0.x86_64 root=/dev/mapper/cl-root ro crashkernel=auto resume=/dev/mapper/cl-swap rd.lvm.lv=cl/root rd.lvm.lv=cl/swap rhgb quiet nosoftlockup mce=ignore_ce intel_idle.max_cstate=0 processor.max_cstate=0 nohz_full=2-17 iommu=off isolcpus=2-17 audit=0 idle=poll skew_tick=1
    
    # gcc --version
    gcc (GCC) 9.2.0

    # lscpu 
    Architecture:        x86_64
    CPU op-mode(s):      32-bit, 64-bit
    Byte Order:          Little Endian
    CPU(s):              18
    On-line CPU(s) list: 0-17
    Thread(s) per core:  1
    Core(s) per socket:  18
    Socket(s):           1
    NUMA node(s):        1
    Vendor ID:           GenuineIntel
    CPU family:          6
    Model:               85
    Model name:          Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6254 CPU @ 3.10GHz
    Stepping:            7
    CPU MHz:             3899.999
    CPU max MHz:         4000.0000
    CPU min MHz:         1200.0000
    BogoMIPS:            6200.00
    Virtualization:      VT-x
    L1d cache:           32K
    L1i cache:           32K
    L2 cache:            1024K
    L3 cache:            25344K
    NUMA node0 CPU(s):   0-17
    Flags:               fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc art arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc cpuid aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 sdbg fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid dca sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch cpuid_fault epb cat_l3 cdp_l3 invpcid_single intel_ppin ssbd mba ibrs ibpb stibp ibrs_enhanced tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 hle avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid rtm cqm mpx rdt_a avx512f avx512dq rdseed adx smap clflushopt clwb intel_pt avx512cd avx512bw avx512vl xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 xsaves cqm_llc cqm_occup_llc cqm_mbm_total cqm_mbm_local dtherm ida arat pln pts pku ospke avx512_vnni md_clear flush_l1d arch_capabilities
In addition, 16th CPU usage stably more than 99% if I run the process with perf. Without perf, still suffering to get all CPU cycles.

Code: Select all

    # perf stat -ddd ./cpu_test.out
    ^C./cpu_test.out: Interrupt

     Performance counter stats for './cpu_test.out':

      14535.018449      task-clock:u (msec)       #    1.000 CPUs utilized          
                 0      context-switches:u        #    0.000 K/sec                  
                 0      cpu-migrations:u          #    0.000 K/sec                  
                45      page-faults:u             #    0.003 K/sec                  
    56,195,943,206      cycles:u                  #    3.866 GHz                      (69.22%)
    40,703,654,800      instructions:u            #    0.72  insn per cycle           (76.92%)
    10,177,448,394      branches:u                #  700.202 M/sec                    (76.93%)
             3,171      branch-misses:u           #    0.00% of all branches          (76.93%)
    10,179,958,967      L1-dcache-loads:u         #  700.375 M/sec                    (76.93%)
             4,651      L1-dcache-load-misses:u   #    0.00% of all L1-dcache hits    (76.93%)
               760      LLC-loads:u               #    0.052 K/sec                    (76.93%)
                12      LLC-load-misses:u         #    1.58% of all LL-cache hits     (76.93%)
    <not supported>     L1-icache-loads:u                                           
              5,274     L1-icache-load-misses:u                                       (76.93%)
    10,178,790,717      dTLB-loads:u              #  700.294 M/sec                    (76.92%)
                 0      dTLB-load-misses:u        #    0.00% of all dTLB cache hits   (61.53%)
                 0      iTLB-loads:u              #    0.000 K/sec                    (61.53%)
                 0      iTLB-load-misses:u        #    0.00% of all iTLB cache hits   (61.53%)
    <not supported>     L1-dcache-prefetches:u                                      
    <not supported>     L1-dcache-prefetch-misses:u                                   

      14.535710128 seconds time elapsed

      14.449669000 seconds user
       0.002993000 seconds sys
What should I do about this? I really appreciate the assistance. If you guys need any missing information, I will edit.

Post Reply