scx_rustland: use a ring buffer for queued tasks

Switch from a BPF_MAP_TYPE_QUEUE to a BPF_MAP_TYPE_RINGBUF to store the
tasks that need to be processed by the user-space scheduler.

A ring buffer allows to save a lot of memory copies and syscalls, since
the memory is directly shared between the BPF and the user-space
components.

Performance profile before this change:

  2.44%  [kernel]  [k] __memset
  2.19%  [kernel]  [k] __sys_bpf
  1.59%  [kernel]  [k] __kmem_cache_alloc_node
  1.00%  [kernel]  [k] _copy_from_user

After this change:

  1.42%  [kernel]  [k] __memset
  0.14%  [kernel]  [k] __sys_bpf
  0.10%  [kernel]  [k] __kmem_cache_alloc_node
  0.07%  [kernel]  [k] _copy_from_user

Both the overhead of sys_bpf() and copy_from_user() are reduced by a
factor of ~15x now (only the dispatch path is using sys_bpf() now).

NOTE: despite being very effective, the current implementation is a bit
of a hack. This is because the present ring buffer API exclusively
permits consumption in a greedy manner, where multiple items can be
consumed simultaneously. However, libbpf-rs does not provide precise
information regarding the exact number of items consumed. By utilizing a
more refined libbpf-rs API [1] we may be able to improve this code a
bit.

Moreover, libbpf-rs doesn't provide an API for the user_ring_buffer, so
at the moment there's not a trivial way to apply the same change to the
dispatched tasks.

However, just with this change applied, the overhead of sys_bpf() and
copy_from_user() is already minimal, so we won't get much benefits by
changing the dispatch path to use a BPF ring buffer.

[1] https://github.com/libbpf/libbpf-rs/pull/680

Signed-off-by: Andrea Righi <andrea.righi@canonical.com>

scheds/rust/scx_rustland/src/bpf.rs

@@ -144,10 +144,10 @@ pub struct QueuedTask {
 // Task queued for dispatching to the BPF component (see bpf_intf::dispatched_task_ctx).
 #[derive(Debug)]
 pub struct DispatchedTask {
-    pub pid: i32,              // pid that uniquely identifies a task
+    pub pid: i32,         // pid that uniquely identifies a task
-    pub cpu: i32,              // target CPU selected by the scheduler
+    pub cpu: i32,         // target CPU selected by the scheduler
-    pub cpumask_cnt: u64,      // cpumask generation counter
+    pub cpumask_cnt: u64, // cpumask generation counter
-    pub payload: u64,          // task payload (used for debugging)
+    pub payload: u64,     // task payload (used for debugging)
 }
 
 // Message received from the dispatcher (see bpf_intf::queued_task_ctx for details).
@@ -205,12 +205,17 @@ impl DispatchedMessage {
     }
 }
 
-pub struct BpfScheduler<'a> {
+pub struct BpfScheduler<'cb> {
-    pub skel: BpfSkel<'a>,               // Low-level BPF connector
+    pub skel: BpfSkel<'cb>,              // Low-level BPF connector
+    queued: libbpf_rs::RingBuffer<'cb>,  // Ring buffer of queued tasks
     struct_ops: Option<libbpf_rs::Link>, // Low-level BPF methods
 }
 
-impl<'a> BpfScheduler<'a> {
+// Buffer to store a task read from the ring buffer.
+const BUFSIZE: usize = std::mem::size_of::<QueuedTask>();
+static mut BUF: [u8; BUFSIZE] = [0; BUFSIZE];
+
+impl<'cb> BpfScheduler<'cb> {
     pub fn init(slice_us: u64, nr_cpus_online: i32, partial: bool, debug: bool) -> Result<Self> {
         // Open the BPF prog first for verification.
         let skel_builder = BpfSkelBuilder::default();
@@ -220,6 +225,26 @@ impl<'a> BpfScheduler<'a> {
         // scheduling.
         ALLOCATOR.lock_memory();
 
+        // Copy one item from the ring buffer.
+        fn callback(data: &[u8]) -> i32 {
+            unsafe {
+                BUF.copy_from_slice(data);
+            }
+
+            // Return an unsupported error to stop early and consume only one item.
+            //
+            // NOTE: this is quite a hack. I wish libbpf would honor stopping after the first item
+            // is consumed, upon returnin a non-zero positive value here, but it doesn't seem to be
+            // the case:
+            //
+            // https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/tools/lib/bpf/ringbuf.c?h=v6.8-rc5#n260
+            //
+            // Maybe we should fix this to stop processing items from the ring buffer also when a
+            // value > 0 is returned.
+            //
+            -255
+        }
+
         // Initialize online CPUs counter.
         //
         // NOTE: we should probably refresh this counter during the normal execution to support cpu
@@ -242,9 +267,21 @@ impl<'a> BpfScheduler<'a> {
                 .context("Failed to attach struct ops")?,
         );
 
+        // Build the ring buffer of queued tasks.
+        let binding = skel.maps();
+        let queued_ring_buffer = binding.queued();
+        let mut rbb = libbpf_rs::RingBufferBuilder::new();
+        rbb.add(queued_ring_buffer, callback)
+            .expect("failed to add ringbuf callback");
+        let queued = rbb.build().expect("failed to build ringbuf");
+
         // Make sure to use the SCHED_EXT class at least for the scheduler itself.
         match Self::use_sched_ext() {
-            0 => Ok(Self { skel, struct_ops }),
+            0 => Ok(Self {
+                skel,
+                queued,
+                struct_ops,
+            }),
             err => Err(anyhow::Error::msg(format!(
                 "sched_setscheduler error: {}",
                 err
@@ -337,16 +374,14 @@ impl<'a> BpfScheduler<'a> {
     //
     // NOTE: if task.cpu is negative the task is exiting and it does not require to be scheduled.
     pub fn dequeue_task(&mut self) -> Result<Option<QueuedTask>, libbpf_rs::Error> {
-        let maps = self.skel.maps();
+        match self.queued.consume() {
-        let queued = maps.queued();
+            Ok(()) => Ok(None),
-
+            Err(error) if error.kind() == libbpf_rs::ErrorKind::Other => {
-        match queued.lookup_and_delete(&[]) {
+                // A valid task is received, convert data to a proper task struct.
-            Ok(Some(msg)) => {
+                let task = unsafe { EnqueuedMessage::from_bytes(&BUF).to_queued_task() };
-                let task = EnqueuedMessage::from_bytes(msg.as_slice()).to_queued_task();
                 Ok(Some(task))
             }
-            Ok(None) => Ok(None),
+            Err(error) => Err(error),
-            Err(err) => Err(err),
         }
     }
 

scheds/rust/scx_rustland/src/bpf/main.bpf.c

@@ -119,8 +119,7 @@ const volatile bool debug;
  * This map is drained by the user space scheduler.
  */
 struct {
-	__uint(type, BPF_MAP_TYPE_QUEUE);
+	__uint(type, BPF_MAP_TYPE_RINGBUF);
-	__type(value, struct queued_task_ctx);
 	__uint(max_entries, MAX_ENQUEUED_TASKS);
 } queued SEC(".maps");
 
@@ -157,11 +156,11 @@ struct {
 } task_ctx_stor SEC(".maps");
 
 /* Return a local task context from a generic task */
-struct task_ctx *lookup_task_ctx(struct task_struct *p)
+struct task_ctx *lookup_task_ctx(const struct task_struct *p)
 {
 	struct task_ctx *tctx;
 
-	tctx = bpf_task_storage_get(&task_ctx_stor, p, 0, 0);
+	tctx = bpf_task_storage_get(&task_ctx_stor, (struct task_struct *)p, 0, 0);
 	if (!tctx) {
 		scx_bpf_error("Failed to lookup task ctx for %s", p->comm);
 		return NULL;
@@ -495,7 +494,7 @@ static void sched_congested(struct task_struct *p)
  */
 void BPF_STRUCT_OPS(rustland_enqueue, struct task_struct *p, u64 enq_flags)
 {
-	struct queued_task_ctx task;
+	struct queued_task_ctx *task;
 
 	/*
 	 * Scheduler is dispatched directly in .dispatch() when needed, so
@@ -523,17 +522,20 @@ void BPF_STRUCT_OPS(rustland_enqueue, struct task_struct *p, u64 enq_flags)
 	 * user-space scheduler.
 	 *
 	 * If @queued list is full (user-space scheduler is congested) tasks
-	 * will be dispatched directly from the kernel (re-using their
+	 * will be dispatched directly from the kernel (using the first CPU
-	 * previously used CPU in this case).
+	 * available in this case).
 	 */
-	get_task_info(&task, p, false);
+	task = bpf_ringbuf_reserve(&queued, sizeof(*task), 0);
-	dbg_msg("enqueue: pid=%d (%s)", p->pid, p->comm);
+	if (!task) {
-	if (bpf_map_push_elem(&queued, &task, 0)) {
 		sched_congested(p);
 		dispatch_task(p, SHARED_DSQ, 0, enq_flags);
 		__sync_fetch_and_add(&nr_kernel_dispatches, 1);
 		return;
 	}
+	get_task_info(task, p, false);
+	dbg_msg("enqueue: pid=%d (%s)", p->pid, p->comm);
+	bpf_ringbuf_submit(task, 0);
+
 	__sync_fetch_and_add(&nr_queued, 1);
 }
 
@@ -736,11 +738,11 @@ s32 BPF_STRUCT_OPS(rustland_init_task, struct task_struct *p,
 void BPF_STRUCT_OPS(rustland_exit_task, struct task_struct *p,
 		    struct scx_exit_task_args *args)
 {
-        struct queued_task_ctx task = {};
+	struct queued_task_ctx *task;
 
 	dbg_msg("exit: pid=%d (%s)", p->pid, p->comm);
-	get_task_info(&task, p, true);
+	task = bpf_ringbuf_reserve(&queued, sizeof(*task), 0);
-	if (bpf_map_push_elem(&queued, &task, 0)) {
+	if (!task) {
 		/*
 		 * We may have a memory leak in the scheduler at this point,
 		 * because we failed to notify it about this exiting task and
@@ -755,6 +757,9 @@ void BPF_STRUCT_OPS(rustland_exit_task, struct task_struct *p,
 		sched_congested(p);
 		return;
 	}
+	get_task_info(task, p, true);
+	bpf_ringbuf_submit(task, 0);
+
 	__sync_fetch_and_add(&nr_queued, 1);
 }
 

scheds/rust/scx_rustland/src/main.rs

@@ -471,7 +471,7 @@ impl<'a> Scheduler<'a> {
     // Dynamically adjust the time slice based on the amount of waiting tasks.
     fn scale_slice_ns(&mut self) {
         let nr_scheduled = self.task_pool.tasks.len() as u64;
-        let slice_us_max = self.slice_ns / MSEC_PER_SEC;
+        let slice_us_max = self.slice_ns / NSEC_PER_USEC;
 
         // Scale time slice as a function of nr_scheduled, but never scale below 250 us.
         let scaling = ((nr_scheduled + 1) / 2).max(1);