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Bug 570814

Summary: Disk performance regression in CFQ
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Reporter: Jeff Moyer <jmoyer>
Component: kernelAssignee: Jeff Moyer <jmoyer>
Status: CLOSED ERRATA QA Contact: Red Hat Kernel QE team <kernel-qe>
Severity: high Docs Contact:
Priority: low    
Version: 5.5CC: jwest, lmcilroy, moshiro, tao
Target Milestone: rcKeywords: Regression
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2010-03-30 07:43:53 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:
Bug Depends On: 456181    
Bug Blocks:    

Description Jeff Moyer 2010-03-05 14:13:29 UTC
Description of problem:

When two or more O_DIRECT reads simultaneously run on different partitions
of a disk, each performance critically slows down.
An example of using multiple dd commands:

# dd if=/dev/sdb1 of=/dev/null iflag=direct &
# dd if=/dev/sdb2 of=/dev/null iflag=direct &

The result of read performance is as follows:

            |      number of dds    |
            |   1   |   2   |   4   |
-------------+-------+-------+-------|
RHEL5.5 beta | 107.6 |   3.7 |   3.7 |
RHEL5.4      | 109.1 |  78.1 |  75.0 |
                    read speed (MB/s)

We investigated this problem and found the patch causing this problem.

linux-2.6-block-cfq-iosched-fix-idling-interfering-with-plugging.patch

When we removed this patch from 5.5 beta, this problem did not occur.

It is a critical performance regression.
So, we can not ship the RHEL5.5 until this problem is fixed.


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
2.6.18-187.el5

How reproducible:
100%

The fix is already upstream, and was tested by the customer:
commit 2d870722965211de072bb36b446a4df99dae07e1

Comment 1 RHEL Program Management 2010-03-05 14:17:25 UTC
This request was evaluated by Red Hat Product Management for inclusion in a Red
Hat Enterprise Linux maintenance release.  Product Management has requested
further review of this request by Red Hat Engineering, for potential
inclusion in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux Update release for currently deployed
products.  This request is not yet committed for inclusion in an Update
release.

Comment 6 Jarod Wilson 2010-03-10 17:02:23 UTC
in kernel-2.6.18-192.el5
You can download this test kernel from http://people.redhat.com/jwilson/el5

Please update the appropriate value in the Verified field
(cf_verified) to indicate this fix has been successfully
verified. Include a comment with verification details.

Comment 9 Jeff Moyer 2010-03-17 14:05:09 UTC
*** Bug 574285 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 11 errata-xmlrpc 2010-03-30 07:43:53 UTC
An advisory has been issued which should help the problem
described in this bug report. This report is therefore being
closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For more information
on therefore solution and/or where to find the updated files,
please follow the link below. You may reopen this bug report
if the solution does not work for you.

http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2010-0178.html