SPEC CPU2017 Platform Settings for Lenovo Systems
- sched_cfs_bandwidth_slice_us
-
This OS setting controls the amount of run-time(bandwidth) transferred to a run queue from the task's control group bandwidth pool. Small values allow the global bandwidth to be shared in a fine-grained manner among tasks, larger values reduce transfer overhead. The default value is 5000 (ns).
- sched_latency_ns
-
This OS setting configures targeted preemption latency for CPU bound tasks. The default value is 24000000 (ns).
- sched_migration_cost_ns
-
Amount of time after the last execution that a task is considered to be "cache hot" in migration decisions. A "hot" task is less likely to be migrated to another CPU, so increasing this variable reduces task migrations. The default value is 500000 (ns).
- sched_min_granularity_ns
-
This OS setting controls the minimal preemption granularity for CPU bound tasks. As the number of runnable tasks increases, CFS(Complete Fair Scheduler), the scheduler of the Linux kernel, decreases the timeslices of tasks. If the number of runnable tasks exceeds sched_latency_ns/sched_min_granularity_ns, the timeslice becomes number_of_running_tasks * sched_min_granularity_ns. The default value is 8000000 (ns).
- sched_wakeup_granularity_ns
-
This OS setting controls the wake-up preemption granularity. Increasing this variable reduces wake-up preemption, reducing disturbance of compute bound tasks. Lowering it improves wake-up latency and throughput for latency critical tasks, particularly when a short duty cycle load component must compete with CPU bound components. The default value is 10000000 (ns).
- numa_balancing
-
This OS setting controls automatic NUMA balancing on memory mapping and process placement.
NUMA balancing incurs overhead for no benefit on workloads that are already bound to NUMA nodes.
Possible settings:
- 0: disables this feature
- 1: enables the feature (this is the default)
For more information see the numa_balancing entry in the Linux sysctl documentation.
- Transparent Hugepages (THP)
-
THP is an abstraction layer that automates most aspects of creating, managing, and using huge pages. It is designed to hide much of the complexity in using huge pages from system administrators and developers. Huge pages increase the memory page size from 4 kilobytes to 2 megabytes. This provides significant performance advantages on systems with highly contended resources and large memory workloads. If memory utilization is too high or memory is badly fragmented which prevents hugepages being allocated, the kernel will assign smaller 4k pages instead. Most recent Linux OS releases have THP enabled by default.
THP usage is controlled by the sysfs setting /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled.
Possible values:
- never: entirely disable THP usage.
- madvise: enable THP usage only inside regions marked MADV_HUGEPAGE using madvise(3).
- always: enable THP usage system-wide. This is the default.
THP creation is controlled by the sysfs setting /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/defrag.
Possible values:
- never: if no THP are available to satisfy a request, do not attempt to make any.
- defer: an allocation requesting THP when none are available get normal pages while requesting THP creation in the background.
- defer+madvise: acts like "always", but only for allocations in regions marked MADV_HUGEPAGE using madvise(3); for all other regions it's like "defer".
- madvise: acts like "always", but only for allocations in regions marked MADV_HUGEPAGE using madvise(3). This is the default.
- always: an allocation requesting THP when none are available will stall until some are made.
An application that "always" requests THP often can benefit from waiting for an allocation until those huge pages can be assembled.
For more information see the Linux transparent hugepage documentation.
- cpupower
-
The OS 'cpupower' utility is used to change CPU power governors settings.
Available settings are:
- Performance: Run the CPU at the maximum frequency.
- powersave: Run the CPU at the minimum frequency.
- tuned-adm
-
The tuned-adm tool is a commandline interface for switching between different tuning profiles available to the tuned tuning daemon available in supported Linux distros. The default configuration file is located in /etc/tuned.conf and the supported profiles can be found in /etc/tune-profiles. Some profiles that may be available by default include: default, desktop-powersave, server-powersave, laptop-ac-powersave, laptop-battery-powersave, spindown-disk, throughput-performance, latency-performance, enterprise-storage. To set a profile, one can issue the command "tuned-adm profile (profile_name)". Here are details about relevant profiles:
- throughput-performance: Server profile for typical throughput tuning. This profile disables tuned and ktune power saving features, enables sysctl settings that may improve disk and network IO throughput performance, switches to the deadline scheduler, and sets the CPU governor to performance.
- latency-performance: Server profile for typical latency tuning. This profile disables tuned and ktune power saving features, enables the deadline IO scheduler, and sets the CPU governor to performance.
- enterprise-storage: Server profile to high disk throughput tuning. This profile disables tuned and ktune power saving features, enables the deadline IO scheduler, enables hugepages and disables disk barriers, increases disk readahead values, and sets the CPU governor to performance
- dirty_background_ratio
-
Set through "echo 40 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_background_ratio". This setting can help Linux disk caching and performance by setting the percentage of system memory that can be filled with dirty pages.
- dirty_ratio
-
Set through "echo 8 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_ratio". This setting is the absolute maximum amount of system memory that can be filled with dirty pages before everything must get committed to disk.
- ksm/sleep_millisecs
-
Set through "echo 200 > /sys/kernel/mm/ksm/sleep_millisecs". This setting controls how many milliseconds the ksmd (KSM daemon) should sleep before the next scan.
- swappiness
-
The swappiness value can range from 1 to 100. A value of 100 will cause the kernel to swap out inactive processes frequently in favor of file system performance, resulting in large disk cache sizes. A value of 1 tells the kernel to only swap processes to disk if absolutely necessary. This can be set through a command like "echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/swappiness"
- Zone Reclaim Mode
-
Zone reclaim allows the reclaiming of pages from a zone if the number of free pages falls below a watermark even if other zones still have enough pages available. Reclaiming a page can be more beneficial than taking the performance penalties that are associated with allocating a page on a remote zone, especially for NUMA machines. To tell the kernel to free local node memory rather than grabbing free memory from remote nodes, use a command like "echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/zone_reclaim_mode"
- Free the file system page cache
-
The command "echo 3> /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches" is used to free pagecache, dentries and inodes.
- Intel(R) Hyper-Threading Technology
-
Enable/Disable Inter(R) Hyper-Threading Technology to allow multiple logical processors within the same processor core share execution resources and cache hierarchy between logical processors. Default is Enabled.
- Intel(R) Virtualization Technology
-
Intel(R) Virtualization Technology allows PC platforms to run multiple applications and operating systems simultaneously in independent partitions, to help to manage and protect the multi-functional capabilities of PCs. Select whether to enable or disable Intel(R) Virtualization Technology. Default is Enabled.
- C State Support
-
Select supported CPU power management status to minimize the idle power consumption of processor.
- C1: C1 only
- C1C3: C1 and C3
- C1C3C6: C1,C3 and C6
Default is C1.