Bug 841330 - Regression in performance of kernel 3.4.4 vs. 3.3.7 when running as Xen Dom0
Summary: Regression in performance of kernel 3.4.4 vs. 3.3.7 when running as Xen Dom0
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: kernel
Version: 16
Hardware: Unspecified
OS: Unspecified
unspecified
unspecified
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Kernel Maintainer List
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2012-07-18 17:28 UTC by W. Michael Petullo
Modified: 2013-02-14 01:29 UTC (History)
7 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2013-02-14 01:29:25 UTC
Type: Bug
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)
/proc/cpuinfo while running kernel 3.4.4 (3.05 KB, text/plain)
2012-07-18 17:29 UTC, W. Michael Petullo
no flags Details
Output from "xl dmesg" with cpufreq=verbose,performance, but NOT xen-acpi-processor.off=1 (5.43 KB, text/plain)
2012-07-27 22:22 UTC, W. Michael Petullo
no flags Details
Output from "xl dmesg" with cpufreq=verbose,performance, but NOT xen-acpi-processor.off=1; kernel and Xen from latest comment (5.50 KB, text/plain)
2012-11-07 18:24 UTC, W. Michael Petullo
no flags Details

Description W. Michael Petullo 2012-07-18 17:28:14 UTC
Description of problem:
I run Xen with Fedora 16 serving as Dom0. I have found that upgrading to kernel 3.4.4 degrades the performance of both Dom0 (i.e., itself) and DomU (i.e., other kernels) vs. 3.3.7.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
kernel-3.4.4-4.fc16.x86_64

How reproducible:
Every time

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Boot 3.4.4 as Dom0.
2. Build glibc-2.16.0 with "time make".
3. Boot 3.3.7 and repeat.
  
Actual results:
3.4.4:
    real: 21:25
    user:  5:12
    sys:  16:03

3.3.7:
    real:  9:58
    user:  4:50
    sys:   4:42

Expected results:
3.4.4 and 3.3.7 should have similar performance.

Additional info:
Looking at /proc/cpuinfo, I noticed that 3.3.7 provides flag aperfmperf and 3.4.4 provides hw_pstate (but not vice versa).

Comment 1 W. Michael Petullo 2012-07-18 17:29:38 UTC
Created attachment 598953 [details]
/proc/cpuinfo while running kernel 3.4.4

Comment 2 Josh Boyer 2012-07-18 17:47:54 UTC
Adding Konrad on CC.

Comment 3 W. Michael Petullo 2012-07-20 17:57:30 UTC
I booted Xen using the Linux 3.4.4 kernel while passing "cpufreq=verbose,performance" to Xen. I confirmed that Xen booted using this argument by checking the output of "xl dmesg". I saw slow results similar to those on 3.4.4 above:

real: 21:28
user: 5:16
sys:  16:01

Comment 4 Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk 2012-07-27 17:28:13 UTC
One more thing, just to eliminate this being the power management fault. Can you on the Linux command line boot with 'xen-acpi-processor.off=1'?

Did you this performance regression start with 3.4.0? Did you try to see if removing some of the commits that I posted on xen-devel had any effect?

Comment 5 W. Michael Petullo 2012-07-27 18:04:53 UTC
That does it. Setting 'xen-acpi-processor.off=1' restores the performance I see on 3.3.7.

I have not yet been able to back any of the commits from my kernel.

Comment 6 Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk 2012-07-27 21:10:50 UTC
(In reply to comment #5)
> That does it. Setting 'xen-acpi-processor.off=1' restores the performance I
> see on 3.3.7.

Yeey! So the cpufreq=performance on the Xen hypervisor line _should_ have done it too. Hmm.

When you ran with 'cpufreq=performance,verbose' did you get any extra Xen output? I am quite curious to see what kind of powersave information it had uploaded that either caused the hypervisor to slow down or .. it its a bug in the hypervisor.
Check with 'xl dmesg' please.

I am leaning towards the latter, so what kind of machine is this? What's the motherboard/RAM? Is the hypervisor a custom compiled one or did you just use the default Fedora one?
> 
> I have not yet been able to back any of the commits from my kernel.

That is Ok. The xen-acpi-processor.off=1 is the failsafe I added in case something would go wrong (which it seems it has).

Also, could I ask you to email Xen-devel on the email thread with these findings (and the motheroad/CPU) so that we can CC the AMD folks to see if they know what is up with the hypervisor.

Thanks!

Comment 7 W. Michael Petullo 2012-07-27 22:22:04 UTC
Created attachment 600871 [details]
Output from "xl dmesg" with cpufreq=verbose,performance, but NOT xen-acpi-processor.off=1

Comment 8 W. Michael Petullo 2012-07-27 22:32:17 UTC
Motherboard: ASUS M5A97, BIOS version 0901
Processor: AMD FX 4170 quad core, 4.2GHz, 12.0MB total cache
Memory: 16GB DDR3 1,151MHz

The hypervisior is standard Fedora xen-4.1.2-8.fc16.x86_64.

Comment 9 Fedora Update System 2012-08-08 20:02:06 UTC
xen-4.1.2-10.fc16 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 16.
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/xen-4.1.2-10.fc16

Comment 10 Michael Young 2012-08-08 20:07:43 UTC
I have built xen-4.1.2-10.fc16 which includes the patch
http://xenbits.xen.org/hg/xen-4.1-testing.hg/rev/435493696053
which it has been suggested might fix this problem.

Comment 11 Fedora Update System 2012-08-11 10:33:37 UTC
xen-4.1.3-1.fc16 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 16.
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/xen-4.1.3-1.fc16

Comment 12 Fedora Update System 2012-08-13 02:27:04 UTC
Package xen-4.1.3-1.fc16:
* should fix your issue,
* was pushed to the Fedora 16 testing repository,
* should be available at your local mirror within two days.
Update it with:
# su -c 'yum update --enablerepo=updates-testing xen-4.1.3-1.fc16'
as soon as you are able to.
Please go to the following url:
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2012-11785/xen-4.1.3-1.fc16
then log in and leave karma (feedback).

Comment 13 W. Michael Petullo 2012-08-13 16:41:18 UTC
I tried:

    xen-4.1.3-1.fc16.x86_64
    kernel-3.4.7-1.fc16.x86_64

without any special boot parameters. The glibc build completed as follows:

real	21m5.056s
user	5m16.343s
sys	15m36.680s

So this combination still has a performance regression (vs. 3.3.7 in the initial comment).

Comment 14 W. Michael Petullo 2012-08-13 19:46:09 UTC
Actually, I was too quick on my last comment. I followed the instructions from the Fedora Update System too closely and forgot to update xen-hypervisor, etc (i.e., I only updated the xen package).

Here are my new results:

real	10m44.211s
user	5m2.713s
sys	5m18.508s

This is still a bit slower but much less so, and it may be due to the imprecision of my "benchmark".

Comment 15 Fedora Update System 2012-08-21 09:53:39 UTC
xen-4.1.3-1.fc16 has been pushed to the Fedora 16 stable repository.  If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.

Comment 16 W. Michael Petullo 2012-11-07 18:22:27 UTC
Something again is wrong.

I am using the same machine with:

    kernel-3.6.5-2.fc16.x86_64
    xen-4.1.3-2.fc16.x86_64

When I boot in Xen, I notice a performance degredation. When I boot with "xen-acpi-processor.off=1" all is well.

Comment 17 W. Michael Petullo 2012-11-07 18:24:01 UTC
Created attachment 640247 [details]
Output from "xl dmesg" with cpufreq=verbose,performance, but NOT xen-acpi-processor.off=1; kernel and Xen from latest comment

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Comment 19 Fedora End Of Life 2013-02-14 01:29:29 UTC
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