410 lines
15 KiB
ReStructuredText
410 lines
15 KiB
ReStructuredText
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NUMA mechanics for sPAPR (pseries machines)
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============================================
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NUMA in sPAPR works different than the System Locality Distance
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Information Table (SLIT) in ACPI. The logic is explained in the LOPAPR
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1.1 chapter 15, "Non Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) Option". This
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document aims to complement this specification, providing details
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of the elements that impacts how QEMU views NUMA in pseries.
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Associativity and ibm,associativity property
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--------------------------------------------
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Associativity is defined as a group of platform resources that has
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similar mean performance (or in our context here, distance) relative to
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everyone else outside of the group.
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The format of the ibm,associativity property varies with the value of
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bit 0 of byte 5 of the ibm,architecture-vec-5 property. The format with
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bit 0 equal to zero is deprecated. The current format, with the bit 0
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with the value of one, makes ibm,associativity property represent the
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physical hierarchy of the platform, as one or more lists that starts
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with the highest level grouping up to the smallest. Considering the
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following topology:
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::
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Mem M1 ---- Proc P1 |
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----------------- | Socket S1 ---|
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chip C1 | |
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| HW module 1 (MOD1)
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Mem M2 ---- Proc P2 | |
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----------------- | Socket S2 ---|
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chip C2 |
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The ibm,associativity property for the processors would be:
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* P1: {MOD1, S1, C1, P1}
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* P2: {MOD1, S2, C2, P2}
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Each allocable resource has an ibm,associativity property. The LOPAPR
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specification allows multiple lists to be present in this property,
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considering that the same resource can have multiple connections to the
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platform.
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Relative Performance Distance and ibm,associativity-reference-points
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--------------------------------------------------------------------
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The ibm,associativity-reference-points property is an array that is used
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to define the relevant performance/distance related boundaries, defining
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the NUMA levels for the platform.
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The definition of its elements also varies with the value of bit 0 of byte 5
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of the ibm,architecture-vec-5 property. The format with bit 0 equal to zero
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is also deprecated. With the current format, each integer of the
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ibm,associativity-reference-points represents an 1 based ordinal index (i.e.
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the first element is 1) of the ibm,associativity array. The first
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boundary is the most significant to application performance, followed by
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less significant boundaries. Allocated resources that belongs to the
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same performance boundaries are expected to have relative NUMA distance
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that matches the relevancy of the boundary itself. Resources that belongs
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to the same first boundary will have the shortest distance from each
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other. Subsequent boundaries represents greater distances and degraded
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performance.
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Using the previous example, the following setting reference points defines
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three NUMA levels:
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* ibm,associativity-reference-points = {0x3, 0x2, 0x1}
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The first NUMA level (0x3) is interpreted as the third element of each
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ibm,associativity array, the second level is the second element and
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the third level is the first element. Let's also consider that elements
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belonging to the first NUMA level have distance equal to 10 from each
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other, and each NUMA level doubles the distance from the previous. This
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means that the second would be 20 and the third level 40. For the P1 and
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P2 processors, we would have the following NUMA levels:
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::
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* ibm,associativity-reference-points = {0x3, 0x2, 0x1}
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* P1: associativity{MOD1, S1, C1, P1}
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First NUMA level (0x3) => associativity[2] = C1
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Second NUMA level (0x2) => associativity[1] = S1
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Third NUMA level (0x1) => associativity[0] = MOD1
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* P2: associativity{MOD1, S2, C2, P2}
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First NUMA level (0x3) => associativity[2] = C2
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Second NUMA level (0x2) => associativity[1] = S2
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Third NUMA level (0x1) => associativity[0] = MOD1
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P1 and P2 have the same third NUMA level, MOD1: Distance between them = 40
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Changing the ibm,associativity-reference-points array changes the performance
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distance attributes for the same associativity arrays, as the following
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example illustrates:
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::
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* ibm,associativity-reference-points = {0x2}
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* P1: associativity{MOD1, S1, C1, P1}
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First NUMA level (0x2) => associativity[1] = S1
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* P2: associativity{MOD1, S2, C2, P2}
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First NUMA level (0x2) => associativity[1] = S2
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P1 and P2 does not have a common performance boundary. Since this is a one level
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NUMA configuration, distance between them is one boundary above the first
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level, 20.
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In a hypothetical platform where all resources inside the same hardware module
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is considered to be on the same performance boundary:
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::
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* ibm,associativity-reference-points = {0x1}
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* P1: associativity{MOD1, S1, C1, P1}
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First NUMA level (0x1) => associativity[0] = MOD0
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* P2: associativity{MOD1, S2, C2, P2}
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First NUMA level (0x1) => associativity[0] = MOD0
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P1 and P2 belongs to the same first order boundary. The distance between then
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is 10.
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How the pseries Linux guest calculates NUMA distances
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=====================================================
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Another key difference between ACPI SLIT and the LOPAPR regarding NUMA is
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how the distances are expressed. The SLIT table provides the NUMA distance
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value between the relevant resources. LOPAPR does not provide a standard
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way to calculate it. We have the ibm,associativity for each resource, which
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provides a common-performance hierarchy, and the ibm,associativity-reference-points
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array that tells which level of associativity is considered to be relevant
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or not.
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The result is that each OS is free to implement and to interpret the distance
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as it sees fit. For the pseries Linux guest, each level of NUMA duplicates
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the distance of the previous level, and the maximum amount of levels is
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limited to MAX_DISTANCE_REF_POINTS = 4 (from arch/powerpc/mm/numa.c in the
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kernel tree). This results in the following distances:
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* both resources in the first NUMA level: 10
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* resources one NUMA level apart: 20
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* resources two NUMA levels apart: 40
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* resources three NUMA levels apart: 80
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* resources four NUMA levels apart: 160
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pseries NUMA mechanics
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======================
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Starting in QEMU 5.2, the pseries machine considers user input when setting NUMA
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topology of the guest. The overall design is:
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* ibm,associativity-reference-points is set to {0x4, 0x3, 0x2, 0x1}, allowing
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for 4 distinct NUMA distance values based on the NUMA levels
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* ibm,max-associativity-domains supports multiple associativity domains in all
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NUMA levels, granting user flexibility
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* ibm,associativity for all resources varies with user input
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These changes are only effective for pseries-5.2 and newer machines that are
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created with more than one NUMA node (disconsidering NUMA nodes created by
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the machine itself, e.g. NVLink 2 GPUs). The now legacy support has been
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around for such a long time, with users seeing NUMA distances 10 and 40
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(and 80 if using NVLink2 GPUs), and there is no need to disrupt the
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existing experience of those guests.
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To bring the user experience x86 users have when tuning up NUMA, we had
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to operate under the current pseries Linux kernel logic described in
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`How the pseries Linux guest calculates NUMA distances`_. The result
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is that we needed to translate NUMA distance user input to pseries
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Linux kernel input.
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Translating user distance to kernel distance
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--------------------------------------------
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User input for NUMA distance can vary from 10 to 254. We need to translate
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that to the values that the Linux kernel operates on (10, 20, 40, 80, 160).
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This is how it is being done:
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* user distance 11 to 30 will be interpreted as 20
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* user distance 31 to 60 will be interpreted as 40
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* user distance 61 to 120 will be interpreted as 80
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* user distance 121 and beyond will be interpreted as 160
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* user distance 10 stays 10
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The reasoning behind this approximation is to avoid any round up to the local
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distance (10), keeping it exclusive to the 4th NUMA level (which is still
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exclusive to the node_id). All other ranges were chosen under the developer
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discretion of what would be (somewhat) sensible considering the user input.
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Any other strategy can be used here, but in the end the reality is that we'll
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have to accept that a large array of values will be translated to the same
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NUMA topology in the guest, e.g. this user input:
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::
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0 1 2
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0 10 31 120
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1 31 10 30
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2 120 30 10
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And this other user input:
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::
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0 1 2
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0 10 60 61
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1 60 10 11
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2 61 11 10
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Will both be translated to the same values internally:
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::
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0 1 2
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0 10 40 80
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1 40 10 20
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2 80 20 10
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Users are encouraged to use only the kernel values in the NUMA definition to
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avoid being taken by surprise with that the guest is actually seeing in the
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topology. There are enough potential surprises that are inherent to the
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associativity domain assignment process, discussed below.
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How associativity domains are assigned
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--------------------------------------
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LOPAPR allows more than one associativity array (or 'string') per allocated
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resource. This would be used to represent that the resource has multiple
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connections with the board, and then the operational system, when deciding
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NUMA distancing, should consider the associativity information that provides
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the shortest distance.
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The spapr implementation does not support multiple associativity arrays per
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resource, neither does the pseries Linux kernel. We'll have to represent the
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NUMA topology using one associativity per resource, which means that choices
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and compromises are going to be made.
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Consider the following NUMA topology entered by user input:
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::
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0 1 2 3
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0 10 40 20 40
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1 40 10 80 40
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2 20 80 10 20
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3 40 40 20 10
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All the associativity arrays are initialized with NUMA id in all associativity
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domains:
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* node 0: 0 0 0 0
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* node 1: 1 1 1 1
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* node 2: 2 2 2 2
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* node 3: 3 3 3 3
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Honoring just the relative distances of node 0 to every other node, we find the
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NUMA level matches (considering the reference points {0x4, 0x3, 0x2, 0x1}) for
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each distance:
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* distance from 0 to 1 is 40 (no match at 0x4 and 0x3, will match
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at 0x2)
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* distance from 0 to 2 is 20 (no match at 0x4, will match at 0x3)
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* distance from 0 to 3 is 40 (no match at 0x4 and 0x3, will match
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at 0x2)
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We'll copy the associativity domains of node 0 to all other nodes, based on
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the NUMA level matches. Between 0 and 1, a match in 0x2, we'll also copy
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the domains 0x2 and 0x1 from 0 to 1 as well. This will give us:
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* node 0: 0 0 0 0
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* node 1: 0 0 1 1
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Doing the same to node 2 and node 3, these are the associativity arrays
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after considering all matches with node 0:
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* node 0: 0 0 0 0
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* node 1: 0 0 1 1
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* node 2: 0 0 0 2
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* node 3: 0 0 3 3
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The distances related to node 0 are accounted for. For node 1, and keeping
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in mind that we don't need to revisit node 0 again, the distance from
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node 1 to 2 is 80, matching at 0x1, and distance from 1 to 3 is 40,
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match in 0x2. Repeating the same logic of copying all domains up to
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the NUMA level match:
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* node 0: 0 0 0 0
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* node 1: 1 0 1 1
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* node 2: 1 0 0 2
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* node 3: 1 0 3 3
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In the last step we will analyze just nodes 2 and 3. The desired distance
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between 2 and 3 is 20, i.e. a match in 0x3:
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* node 0: 0 0 0 0
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* node 1: 1 0 1 1
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* node 2: 1 0 0 2
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* node 3: 1 0 0 3
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The kernel will read these arrays and will calculate the following NUMA topology for
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the guest:
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::
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0 1 2 3
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0 10 40 20 20
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1 40 10 40 40
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2 20 40 10 20
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3 20 40 20 10
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Note that this is not what the user wanted - the desired distance between
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0 and 3 is 40, we calculated it as 20. This is what the current logic and
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implementation constraints of the kernel and QEMU will provide inside the
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LOPAPR specification.
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Users are welcome to use this knowledge and experiment with the input to get
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the NUMA topology they want, or as closer as they want. The important thing
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is to keep expectations up to par with what we are capable of provide at this
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moment: an approximation.
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Limitations of the implementation
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---------------------------------
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As mentioned above, the pSeries NUMA distance logic is, in fact, a way to approximate
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user choice. The Linux kernel, and PAPR itself, does not provide QEMU with the ways
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to fully map user input to actual NUMA distance the guest will use. These limitations
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creates two notable limitations in our support:
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* Asymmetrical topologies aren't supported. We only support NUMA topologies where
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the distance from node A to B is always the same as B to A. We do not support
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any A-B pair where the distance back and forth is asymmetric. For example, the
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following topology isn't supported and the pSeries guest will not boot with this
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user input:
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::
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0 1
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0 10 40
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1 20 10
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* 'non-transitive' topologies will be poorly translated to the guest. This is the
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kind of topology where the distance from a node A to B is X, B to C is X, but
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the distance A to C is not X. E.g.:
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::
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0 1 2 3
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0 10 20 20 40
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1 20 10 80 40
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2 20 80 10 20
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3 40 40 20 10
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In the example above, distance 0 to 2 is 20, 2 to 3 is 20, but 0 to 3 is 40.
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The kernel will always match with the shortest associativity domain possible,
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and we're attempting to retain the previous established relations between the
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nodes. This means that a distance equal to 20 between nodes 0 and 2 and the
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same distance 20 between nodes 2 and 3 will cause the distance between 0 and 3
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to also be 20.
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Legacy (5.1 and older) pseries NUMA mechanics
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=============================================
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In short, we can summarize the NUMA distances seem in pseries Linux guests, using
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QEMU up to 5.1, as follows:
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* local distance, i.e. the distance of the resource to its own NUMA node: 10
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* if it's a NVLink GPU device, distance: 80
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* every other resource, distance: 40
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The way the pseries Linux guest calculates NUMA distances has a direct effect
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on what QEMU users can expect when doing NUMA tuning. As of QEMU 5.1, this is
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the default ibm,associativity-reference-points being used in the pseries
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machine:
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ibm,associativity-reference-points = {0x4, 0x4, 0x2}
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The first and second level are equal, 0x4, and a third one was added in
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commit a6030d7e0b35 exclusively for NVLink GPUs support. This means that
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regardless of how the ibm,associativity properties are being created in
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the device tree, the pseries Linux guest will only recognize three scenarios
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as far as NUMA distance goes:
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* if the resources belongs to the same first NUMA level = 10
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* second level is skipped since it's equal to the first
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* all resources that aren't a NVLink GPU, it is guaranteed that they will belong
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to the same third NUMA level, having distance = 40
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* for NVLink GPUs, distance = 80 from everything else
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This also means that user input in QEMU command line does not change the
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NUMA distancing inside the guest for the pseries machine.
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