About Intel RDT/CAT feature:
Intel platforms with new Xeon CPU support Intel Resource Director Technology
(RDT). Cache Allocation Technology (CAT) is a sub-feature of RDT, which
currently supports L3 cache resource allocation.
This feature provides a way for the software to restrict cache allocation to a
defined 'subset' of L3 cache which may be overlapping with other 'subsets'.
The different subsets are identified by class of service (CLOS) and each CLOS
has a capacity bitmask (CBM).
For more information about Intel RDT/CAT can be found in the section 17.17
of Intel Software Developer Manual.
About Intel RDT/CAT kernel interface:
In Linux 4.10 kernel or newer, the interface is defined and exposed via
"resource control" filesystem, which is a "cgroup-like" interface.
Comparing with cgroups, it has similar process management lifecycle and
interfaces in a container. But unlike cgroups' hierarchy, it has single level
filesystem layout.
Intel RDT "resource control" filesystem hierarchy:
mount -t resctrl resctrl /sys/fs/resctrl
tree /sys/fs/resctrl
/sys/fs/resctrl/
|-- info
| |-- L3
| |-- cbm_mask
| |-- min_cbm_bits
| |-- num_closids
|-- cpus
|-- schemata
|-- tasks
|-- <container_id>
|-- cpus
|-- schemata
|-- tasks
For runc, we can make use of `tasks` and `schemata` configuration for L3 cache
resource constraints.
The file `tasks` has a list of tasks that belongs to this group (e.g.,
<container_id>" group). Tasks can be added to a group by writing the task ID
to the "tasks" file (which will automatically remove them from the previous
group to which they belonged). New tasks created by fork(2) and clone(2) are
added to the same group as their parent. If a pid is not in any sub group, it
Is in root group.
The file `schemata` has allocation bitmasks/values for L3 cache on each socket,
which contains L3 cache id and capacity bitmask (CBM).
Format: "L3:<cache_id0>=<cbm0>;<cache_id1>=<cbm1>;..."
For example, on a two-socket machine, L3's schema line could be `L3:0=ff;1=c0`
which means L3 cache id 0's CBM is 0xff, and L3 cache id 1's CBM is 0xc0.
The valid L3 cache CBM is a *contiguous bits set* and number of bits that can
be set is less than the max bit. The max bits in the CBM is varied among
supported Intel Xeon platforms. In Intel RDT "resource control" filesystem
layout, the CBM in a group should be a subset of the CBM in root. Kernel will
check if it is valid when writing. e.g., 0xfffff in root indicates the max bits
of CBM is 20 bits, which mapping to entire L3 cache capacity. Some valid CBM
values to set in a group: 0xf, 0xf0, 0x3ff, 0x1f00 and etc.
For more information about Intel RDT/CAT kernel interface:
https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/x86/intel_rdt_ui.txt
An example for runc:
Consider a two-socket machine with two L3 caches where the default CBM is
0xfffff and the max CBM length is 20 bits. With this configuration, tasks
inside the container only have access to the "upper" 80% of L3 cache id 0 and
the "lower" 50% L3 cache id 1:
"linux": {
"intelRdt": {
"l3CacheSchema": "L3:0=ffff0;1=3ff"
}
}
Signed-off-by: Xiaochen Shen <xiaochen.shen@intel.com>
Xiaochen Shen
Michael Crosby