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xen-devel
Re: [Xen-devel] (Further timing queries) Re: Strange behavior of simple
Arjun wrote:
Anthony,
Thanks for that. Are there any specific documents or links I can check
out regarding this issue ?
Try googling.
I have another query along these lines :
I have a simple java "Echo" client and server. In the client, I send a
message of specific size to the server which echoes it back to the
client and time the response. I use the java "
System.currentTimeMillis()" function before and after the echo to
measure the round-trip-time (RTT). Question is : if both my client and
server programs are running inside Xen 3.0 guests, are the timing
results trustworthy ? (Note that I'm measuring on a millisecond scale
and am using the jdk1.5)
In this case, you're measuring wall clock time. Since you're only
interested in knowing the length of the period, your program will work
just fine under Xen.
Let me clarify things a little bit more. Let's say that your kernel
keeps track of process CPU usage in the following manner.
When a process starts to run, you check a high resolution timer. When
the process stops running (due to preemption or IO blocking), you check
the timer again and compute a delta and store that delta in the
processes "total run time". You also add this delta to "total system
run time".
You can then calculate the percent CPU from dividing the processes
"total run time" by the "total system run time". The problem here in
virtualization is that while that process is running, it may be
pre-empted to allow another guest to run. This means the delta that we
calculate to measure the length that the process ran also includes how
long the other guest had run. This extra time is typically referred to
as "stolen time".
As I mentioned before, to get proper CPU usage information in a guest,
the kernel has to take "stolen time" into account. This is something
that I believe z/Linux does and hopefully we can also do in xenolinux in
the not to distant future. For now though, you cannot trust anything
that relies on knowing how long a process has been using the CPU.
Any other sort of time measurement will work as expected though.
Regards,
Anthony Liguori
Thanks and regards
Arjun
On 4/15/06, *Anthony Liguori* <aliguori@xxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:aliguori@xxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
You're experience a well known problem with just about any piece of
virtualization software.
Tools that run in the guest (like sar and top) do not realize that the
guest isn't always running which means they don't take this into
account
when calculating percentages. This makes the output from them
pretty much
useless in a virtualized environment.
The IBM zSeries Linux port has some special modifications to take this
trait into account within the kernel so tools like top work like you'd
expect. I believe someone was looking into doing something like
this for
Xen.
Regards,
Anthony Liguori
On Sat, 15 Apr 2006 02:57:26 -0400, Arjun wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm running some simple C programs in a Xen 3.0 guest. I have a
program
> testprog.c containing simple nested loops (see code below). I
run this
> program and check "sar" and "top" output inside the guest and
also xentop
> on the host. It shows that the running program takes up almost
all the CPU
> time as expected.
>
> Now I introduce a sleep(1) statement inside my outer loop. On
running the
> modified program, both "sar" and "top" in the guest VM show 0%
and xentop
> on the host shows about 0.5%
> Next I start about a 100 instances of my loop program (started
at skewed
> times) inside the guest VM. A check on sar and top still shows
0% CPU,
> however a check on xentop on the host shows an increase in CPU
usage for
> the guest. This changes with the number of instances of the loop
program I
> start (more or less linearly).
>
> I don't understand why this is happening. Why are sar and top
showing
> incorrect output in the guest VM. Can anyone explain ?
>
> P.S: code for the programs is posted below.
>
> Thanks and regards
> Arjun
>
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