Chapter 4. Process Scheduling

This chapter discusses the process scheduler, the kernel subsystem that puts those processes to work.

The process scheduler (or simply the scheduler) divides the finite resource of processor time between the runnable processes on a system. It is responsible for best utilizing the system and giving users the impression that multiple processes are executing simultaneously. [p41]

To best utilize processor time, assuming there are runnable processes, a process should always be running. If there are more runnable processes than processors in a system, some processes will not be running at a given moment. These processes are waiting to run. Deciding which process runs next, given a set of runnable processes, is the fundamental decision that the scheduler must make.


A multitasking operating system is one that can simultaneously interleave execution of more than one process.

On either type of machine, it also enables many processes to block or sleep. Although these processes are in memory, they are not runnable. These processes utilize the kernel to wait until some event (keyboard input, network data, passage of time, and so on) occurs. [p41]

Multitasking operating systems come in two flavors:

Preemptive multitasking

Linux, like all Unix variants and most modern operating systems, implements preemptive multitasking. In preemptive multitasking, the scheduler decides when a process is to cease running and a new process is to begin running.

Cooperative multitasking

In cooperative multitasking, a process does not stop running until it voluntarily decides to do so. The act of a process voluntarily suspending itself is called yielding, but the operating system cannot enforce this.

The shortcomings of this approach are manifest:


Linux's Process Scheduler

From Linux's first version in 1991 through the 2.4 kernel series, the Linux scheduler was simple in design. It was easy to understand, but scaled poorly in light of many runnable processes or many processors.

During the 2.5 kernel development series, the O(1) scheduler solved the shortcomings of the previous Linux scheduler and introduced powerful new features and performance characteristics. By introducing a constant-time algorithm for timeslice calculation and per-processor runqueues, it rectified the design limitations of the earlier scheduler.

However, the O(1) scheduler had several pathological failures related to scheduling latency-sensitive applications (interactive processes). Thus, although the O(1) scheduler was ideal for large server workloads, which lack interactive processes, it performed below par on desktop systems, where interactive applications are the raison d'être.

Beginning in the 2.6 kernel series, developers introduced new process schedulers aimed at improving the interactive performance of the O(1) scheduler. The most notable of these was the Rotating Staircase Deadline scheduler, which introduced the concept of fair scheduling, borrowed from queuing theory, to Linux's process scheduler. This concept was the inspiration for the O(1) scheduler's eventual replacement in kernel version 2.6.23, the Completely Fair Scheduler (CFS).

This chapter discusses the fundamentals of scheduler design and how they apply to the Completely Fair Scheduler and its goals, design, implementation, algorithms, and related system calls. We also discuss the O(1) scheduler because its implementation is a more "classic" Unix process scheduler model.



I/O-Bound Versus Processor-Bound Processes


These classifications are not mutually exclusive. Processes can exhibit both behaviors simultaneously:


Favoring I/O-bound over processor-bound

Schedulers often employ complex algorithms to determine the most worthwhile process to run while not compromising fairness to other processes with lower priority. [p43-44]

Process Priority

The priority-based scheduling is a common type of scheduling algorithm, which isn't exactly implemented on Linux. It means that processes with a higher priority run before those with a lower priority, whereas processes with the same priority are scheduled round-robin (one after the next, repeating). On some systems, processes with a higher priority also receive a longer timeslice. The runnable process with timeslice remaining and the highest priority always runs. [p44]

nice value and real-time priority

The Linux kernel implements two separate priority ranges:


The timeslice is the numeric value that represents how long a task can run until it is preempted.

The conflicting goals of I/O bound versus processor-bound processes:

Timeslice on Linux

Linux's CFS scheduler does not directly assign timeslices to processes, but assigns processes a proportion of the processor. The amount of processor time that a process receives is a function of the load of the system. This assigned proportion is further affected by each process's nice value. The nice value acts as a weight, changing the proportion of the processor time each process receives. Processes with higher nice values (a lower priority) receive a deflationary weight, yielding them a smaller proportion of the processor, and vice versa.

With the CFS scheduler, whether the process runs immediately (preempting the currently running process) is a function of how much of a proportion of the processor the newly runnable processor has consumed. If it has consumed a smaller proportion of the processor than the currently executing process, it runs immediately

The Scheduling Policy in Action

Consider a system with two runnable tasks: a text editor (I/O-bound) and a video encoder (processor-bound). [p45-46]

Ideally, the scheduler gives the text editor a larger proportion of the available processor than the video encoder, because the text editor is interactive. We have two goals for the text editor:

  1. We want the text editor to have a large amount of processor time available to it; not because it needs a lot of processor (it does not) but because we want it to always have processor time available the moment it needs it.
  2. We want the text editor to preempt the video encoder the moment it wakes up (say, when the user presses a key). This can ensure the text editor has good interactive performance and is responsive to user input.

How the above two goals achieved

  1. Instead of assigning the text editor a specific priority and timeslice, the Linux guarantees the text editor a specific proportion of the processor. If the two are the only processes with same nice values, each would be guaranteed half of the processor's time (the proportion is 50%). Because the text editor spends most of its time blocked, waiting for user key presses, it does not use anywhere near 50% of the processor. Conversely, the video encoder is free to use more than its allotted 50%, enabling it to finish the encoding quickly.
  2. When the editor wakes up, CFS notes that it is allotted 50% of the processor but has used considerably less, and thus determines that the text editor has run for less time than the video encoder. Attempting to give all processes a fair share of the processor, it then preempts the video encoder and enables the text editor to run. [p46]

The Linux Scheduling Algorithm

Scheduler Classes

The Linux scheduler is modular, enabling different algorithms to schedule different types of processes.This modularity is called scheduler classes. The base scheduler code, which is defined in kernel/sched.c, iterates over each scheduler class in order of priority.The highest priority scheduler class that has a runnable process wins, selecting who runs next.

The Completely Fair Scheduler (CFS) is the registered scheduler class for normal processes, called SCHED_NORMAL in Linux (and SCHED_OTHER in POSIX). CFS is defined in kernel/sched_fair.c. The rest of this section discusses the CFS algorithm.

Process Scheduling in Unix Systems

To discuss fair scheduling, we must first describe how traditional Unix systems schedule processes.

Modern process schedulers have two common concepts: process priority and timeslice. Processes with a higher priority run more frequently and (on many systems) receive a higher timeslice. On Unix, the priority is exported to user-space in the form of nice values. This in practice leads to several problems:

  1. Mapping nice values onto timeslices requires a decision about what absolute timeslice to allot each nice value, which leads to suboptimal switching behavior. [p47]
  2. Nicing (down) a process by a relative nice value has wildly different effects depending on the starting nice value. [p47-48]
  3. Absolute timeslice timeslice must be some integer multiple of the timer tick, which introduces several problems. [p48]
  4. Handling process wake up in a priority-based scheduler that wants to optimize for interactive tasks may cause the scheduler providing one process an unfair amount of processor time, at the expense of the rest of the system. [p48]

The approach taken by CFS is a radical (for process schedulers) rethinking of timeslice allotment: Do away with timeslices completely and assign each process a proportion of the processor. CFS thus yields constant fairness but a variable switching rate.

Fair Scheduling

CFS is based on a simple concept: Model process scheduling as if the system had an ideal, perfectly multitasking processor. In such a system, each process would receive 1/n of the processor's time, where n is the number of runnable processes, and we'd schedule them for infinitely small durations, so that in any measurable period we'd have run all n processes for the same amount of time. [p48]

It is not efficient to run processes for infinitely small durations; there is a switching cost to preempting one process for another: the overhead of swapping one process for another and the effects on caches. CFS will run each process for some amount of time, round-robin, selecting next the process that has run the least. Rather than assign each process a timeslice, CFS calculates how long a process should run as a function of the total number of runnable processes. Instead of using the nice value to calculate a timeslice, CFS uses the nice value to weight the proportion of processor a process is to receive. [p49]

Each process runs for a "timeslice" proportional to its weight divided by the total weight of all runnable threads. CFS sets a target for its approximation of the "infinitely small" scheduling duration in perfect multitasking. This target is called the targeted latency. Smaller targets yield better interactivity and a closer approximation to perfect multitasking, at the expense of higher switching costs and thus worse overall throughput. CFS imposes a floor on the timeslice assigned to each process, called the minimum granularity (by default 1 millisecond). Even as the number of runnable processes approaches infinity, each will run for at least 1 millisecond, to ensure there is a ceiling on the incurred switching costs

For the nice value on weighting the proportion, consider the case of two runnable processes with disimilar nice values. One with the default nice value (zero) and one with a nice value of 5. In this case, the weights work out to about a 1⁄3 penalty for the nice-5 process. If our target latency is again 20 milliseconds, our two processes will receive 15 milliseconds and 5 milliseconds each of processor time, respectively. Put generally, the proportion of processor time that any process receives is determined only by the relative difference in niceness between it and the other runnable processes. The nice values, instead of yielding additive increases to timeslices, yield geometric differences. [p49-50]

The Linux Scheduling Implementation

CFS's actual implementation lives in kernel/sched_fair.c. Specifically, this sections discusses four components of CFS:

Time Accounting

All process schedulers must account for the time that a process runs. On each tick of the system clock, the timeslice is decremented by the tick period.When the timeslice reaches zero, the process is preempted in favor of another runnable process with a nonzero timeslice.

The Scheduler Entity Structure

CFS does not have the notion of a timeslice, but it must still keep account for the time that each process runs. [p50]

CFS uses the scheduler entity structure, struct sched_entity, defined in <linux/sched.h> (include/linux/sched.h#L1090), to keep track of process accounting:

struct sched_entity {
    struct load_weight load;
    struct rb_node run_node;
    struct list_head group_node;
    unsigned int on_rq;
    u64 exec_start;
    u64 sum_exec_runtime;
    u64 vruntime;
    u64 prev_sum_exec_runtime;
    u64 last_wakeup;
    u64 avg_overlap;
    u64 nr_migrations;
    u64 start_runtime;
    u64 avg_wakeup;

/* many stat variables elided, enabled only if CONFIG_SCHEDSTATS is set */

The scheduler entity structure is embedded in the process descriptor, struct task_stuct, as a member variable named se (include/linux/sched.h#L1188).

Mapping of nice value to weight *

The mapping of nice to weight is defined in the prio_to_weight constant array (kernel/sched.c#L1362). The weight is roughly equivalent to 1024/(1.25)^(nice).

static const int prio_to_weight[40] = {
 /* -20 */     88761,     71755,     56483,     46273,     36291,
 /* -15 */     29154,     23254,     18705,     14949,     11916,
 /* -10 */      9548,      7620,      6100,      4904,      3906,
 /*  -5 */      3121,      2501,      1991,      1586,      1277,
 /*   0 */      1024,       820,       655,       526,       423,
 /*   5 */       335,       272,       215,       172,       137,
 /*  10 */       110,        87,        70,        56,        45,
 /*  15 */        36,        29,        23,        18,        15,
The Virtual Runtime

The vruntime variable stores the virtual runtime of a process, which is the actual runtime (the amount of time spent running) normalized (or weighted) by the number of runnable processes. The virtual runtime's units are nanoseconds and therefore vruntime is decoupled from the timer tick. Because processors are not capable of perfect multitasking and we must run each process in succession, CFS uses vruntime to account for how long a process has run and thus how much longer it ought to run.

The function update_curr(), defined in kernel/sched_fair.c (kernel/sched_fair.c#L518), manages this accounting:

static void update_curr(struct cfs_rq *cfs_rq)
    struct sched_entity *curr = cfs_rq->curr;
    u64 now = rq_of(cfs_rq)->clock;
    unsigned long delta_exec;

    if (unlikely(!curr))

     * Get the amount of time the current task was running
     * since the last time we changed load (this cannot
     * overflow on 32 bits):
    delta_exec = (unsigned long)(now - curr->exec_start);
    if (!delta_exec)

    __update_curr(cfs_rq, curr, delta_exec);
    curr->exec_start = now;

    if (entity_is_task(curr)) {
        struct task_struct *curtask = task_of(curr);

        trace_sched_stat_runtime(curtask, delta_exec, curr->vruntime);
        cpuacct_charge(curtask, delta_exec);
        account_group_exec_runtime(curtask, delta_exec);

update_curr() calculates the execution time of the current process and stores that value in delta_exec. It then passes that runtime to __update_curr(), which weights the time by the number of runnable processes. The current process's vruntime is then incremented by the weighted value:

 * Update the current task's runtime statistics. Skip current tasks that
 * are not in our scheduling class.
static inline void
__update_curr(struct cfs_rq *cfs_rq, struct sched_entity *curr,
          unsigned long delta_exec)
    unsigned long delta_exec_weighted;

    schedstat_set(curr->exec_max, max((u64)delta_exec, curr->exec_max));

    curr->sum_exec_runtime += delta_exec;
    schedstat_add(cfs_rq, exec_clock, delta_exec);
    delta_exec_weighted = calc_delta_fair(delta_exec, curr);

    curr->vruntime += delta_exec_weighted;

update_curr() is invoked periodically by the system timer and also whenever a process becomes runnable or blocks, becoming unrunnable. In this manner, vruntime is an accurate measure of the runtime of a given process and an indicator of what process should run next.

The calc_delta_fair() function

__update_curr() calls calc_delta_fair(), which in turn calls calc_delta_mine() (if se->load.weight does not equal NICE_0_LOAD) to calculate the weighted value:


 * delta /= w
static inline unsigned long
calc_delta_fair(unsigned long delta, struct sched_entity *se)
        delta = calc_delta_mine(delta, NICE_0_LOAD, &se->load);

    return delta;


 * delta *= weight / lw
static unsigned long
calc_delta_mine(unsigned long delta_exec, unsigned long weight,
        struct load_weight *lw)
    u64 tmp;

    if (!lw->inv_weight) {
        if (BITS_PER_LONG > 32 && unlikely(lw->weight >= WMULT_CONST))
            lw->inv_weight = 1;
            lw->inv_weight = 1 + (WMULT_CONST-lw->weight/2)
                / (lw->weight+1);

    tmp = (u64)delta_exec * weight;
     * Check whether we'd overflow the 64-bit multiplication:
    if (unlikely(tmp > WMULT_CONST))
        tmp = SRR(SRR(tmp, WMULT_SHIFT/2) * lw->inv_weight,
        tmp = SRR(tmp * lw->inv_weight, WMULT_SHIFT);

    return (unsigned long)min(tmp, (u64)(unsigned long)LONG_MAX);

This can be summarized as:

delta_exec_weighted = delta_exec * NICE_0_LOAD / se->load

For division details, see Explanation of the calc_delta_mine function.

Process Selection

CFS attempts to balance a process's virtual runtime with a simple rule: when deciding what process to run next, it picks the process with the smallest vruntime.

CFS uses a red-black tree to manage the list of runnable processes and efficiently find the process with the smallest vruntime. A red-black tree, called an rbtree in Linux (include/linux/rbtree.h, lib/rbtree.c), is a type of self-balancing binary search tree. It is a data structure that store nodes of arbitrary data, identified by a specific key, and that they enable efficient search for a given key. Specifically, obtaining a node identified by a given key is logarithmic in time as a function of total nodes in the tree.

Picking the Next Task

The process that CFS wants to run next, which is the process with the smallest vruntime, is the leftmost node in the tree. If you follow the tree from the root down through the left child, and continue moving to the left until you reach a leaf node, you find the process with the smallest vruntime. CFS's process selection algorithm is thus summed up as "run the process represented by the leftmost node in the rbtree." [p53]

The function that performs this selection is __pick_next_entity(), defined in kernel/sched_fair.c(kernel/sched_fair.c#L377):

static struct sched_entity *__pick_next_entity(struct cfs_rq *cfs_rq)
    struct rb_node *left = cfs_rq->rb_leftmost;

    if (!left)
        return NULL;

    return rb_entry(left, struct sched_entity, run_node);

Note that __pick_next_entity() does not actually traverse the tree to find the leftmost node, because the value is cached by rb_leftmost, though it is efficient to walk the tree to find the leftmost node (O(height of tree), which is O(log N) for N nodes if the tree is balanced).

The return value from this function is the process that CFS next runs. If the function returns NULL, there is no leftmost node, and thus no nodes in the tree. In that case, there are no runnable processes, and CFS schedules the idle task.

Adding Processes to the Tree

CFS adds processes to the rbtree and caches the leftmost node, when a process becomes runnable (wakes up) or is first created via fork(). Adding processes to the tree is performed by enqueue_entity():


static void
enqueue_entity(struct cfs_rq *cfs_rq, struct sched_entity *se, int flags)
     * Update the normalized vruntime before updating min_vruntime
     * through callig update_curr().
    if (!(flags & ENQUEUE_WAKEUP) || (flags & ENQUEUE_MIGRATE))
        se->vruntime += cfs_rq->min_vruntime;

     * Update run-time statistics of the 'current'.
    account_entity_enqueue(cfs_rq, se);

    if (flags & ENQUEUE_WAKEUP) {
        place_entity(cfs_rq, se, 0);
        enqueue_sleeper(cfs_rq, se);

    update_stats_enqueue(cfs_rq, se);
    check_spread(cfs_rq, se);
    if (se != cfs_rq->curr)
        __enqueue_entity(cfs_rq, se);

This function updates the runtime and other statistics and then invokes __enqueue_entity() to perform the actual heavy lifting of inserting the entry into the red-black tree.


 * Enqueue an entity into the rb-tree:
    struct rb_node **link = &cfs_rq->tasks_timeline.rb_node;
    struct rb_node *parent = NULL;
    struct sched_entity *entry;
    s64 key = entity_key(cfs_rq, se);
    int leftmost = 1;

     * Find the right place in the rbtree:
    while (*link) {
        parent = *link;
        entry = rb_entry(parent, struct sched_entity, run_node);
         * We dont care about collisions. Nodes with
         * the same key stay together.
        if (key < entity_key(cfs_rq, entry)) {
            link = &parent->rb_left;
        } else {
            link = &parent->rb_right;
            leftmost = 0;

     * Maintain a cache of leftmost tree entries (it is frequently
     * used):
    if (leftmost)
        cfs_rq->rb_leftmost = &se->run_node;


This function traverses the tree in the while() loop to search for a matching key (inserted process's vruntime). It moves to the left child if the key is smaller than the current node's key and to the right child if the key is larger. If it ever moves to the right, even once, it knows the inserted process cannot be the new leftmost node, and it sets leftmost to zero. If it moves only to the left, leftmost remains one, and we have a new leftmost node and can update the cache by setting rb_leftmost to the inserted process. When out of the loop, the function calls rb_link_node() on the parent node, making the inserted process the new child. The function rb_insert_color() updates the self-balancing properties of the tree.

Removing Processes from the Tree

CFS removes processes from the red-black tree when a process blocks (becomes unrunnable) or terminates (ceases to exist):


static void
dequeue_entity(struct cfs_rq *cfs_rq, struct sched_entity *se, int sleep)
     * Update run-time statistics of the 'current'.

    update_stats_dequeue(cfs_rq, se);
    clear_buddies(cfs_rq, se);

    if (se != cfs_rq->curr)
        __dequeue_entity(cfs_rq, se);
    account_entity_dequeue(cfs_rq, se);

     * Normalize the entity after updating the min_vruntime because the
     * update can refer to the ->curr item and we need to reflect this
     * movement in our normalized position.
    if (!sleep)
        se->vruntime -= cfs_rq->min_vruntime;

Similarly, the real work is performed by a helper function, __dequeue_entity():

static void __dequeue_entity(struct cfs_rq *cfs_rq, struct sched_entity *se)
    if (cfs_rq->rb_leftmost == &se->run_node) {
        struct rb_node *next_node;

        next_node = rb_next(&se->run_node);
        cfs_rq->rb_leftmost = next_node;

    rb_erase(&se->run_node, &cfs_rq->tasks_timeline);

Removing a process from the tree is much simpler because the rbtree implementation provides the rb_erase() function that performs all the work. The rest of this function updates the rb_leftmost cache. If the process-to-remove is the leftmost node, the function invokes rb_next() to find what would be the next node in an in-order traversal. This is what will be the leftmost node when the current leftmost node is removed.

The Scheduler Entry Point

The main entry point into the process schedule is the function schedule(), defined in kernel/sched.c (kernel/sched.c#L3701). This is the function that the rest of the kernel uses to invoke the process scheduler, deciding which process to run and then running it.

schedule() is generic to scheduler classes. It finds the highest priority scheduler class with a runnable process and asks it what to run next. Thus, schedule() is simple. The only important part of the function is its invocation of pick_next_task(), defined in kernel/sched.c (kernel/sched.c#L3670), which goes through each scheduler class, starting with the highest priority, and selects the highest priority process in the highest priority class:

 * Pick up the highest-prio task:
static inline struct task_struct *
pick_next_task(struct rq *rq)
    const struct sched_class *class;
    struct task_struct *p;

     * Optimization: we know that if all tasks are in
     * the fair class we can call that function directly:
    if (likely(rq->nr_running == rq->cfs.nr_running)) {
        p = fair_sched_class.pick_next_task(rq);
        if (likely(p))
            return p;

    class = sched_class_highest;
    for ( ; ; ) {
        p = class->pick_next_task(rq);
        if (p)
            return p;
         * Will never be NULL as the idle class always
         * returns a non-NULL p:
        class = class->next;

Note the optimization at the beginning of the function. CFS is the scheduler class for normal processes, and most systems run mostly normal processes, there is a small hack to quickly select the next CFS-provided process if the number of runnable processes is equal to the number of CFS runnable processes (which suggests that all runnable processes are provided by CFS).

The core of the function is the for() loop, which iterates over each class in priority order, starting with the highest priority class. Each class implements the pick_next_task() function, which returns a pointer to its next runnable process or, if there is not one, NULL.The first class to return a non-NULL value has selected the next runnable process. CFS's implementation of pick_next_task() calls pick_next_entity(), which in turn calls the __pick_next_entity() function (see Picking the Next Task in the previous section).

fair_sched_class scheduler class *

fair_sched_class is a struct sched_class (defined in include/linux/sched.h) structure defined in kernel/sched_fair.c (kernel/sched_fair.c#L3688). kernel/sched_fair.c is included by kernel/sched.c (kernel/sched.c#L1936), so fair_sched_class is avaialble to the pick_next_task function in /kernel/sched.c.

Sleeping and Waking Up

Tasks that are sleeping (blocked) are in a special non-runnable state. [p58]

A task sleeps while it is waiting for some event, which may be:

A task can also involuntarily go to sleep when it tries to obtain a contended semaphore in the kernel.

Whatever the case, the kernel behavior is the same. The task does the following in turn:

Waking back up is the inverse: The task is set as runnable, removed from the wait queue, and added back to the red-black tree.

Two states are associated with sleeping:

They differ only in that tasks in the TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE state ignore signals, whereas tasks in the TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE state wake up prematurely and respond to a signal if one is issued. Both types of sleeping tasks sit on a wait queue, waiting for an event to occur, and are not runnable.

Wait Queues

Sleeping is handled via wait queues. A wait queue is a simple list of processes waiting for an event to occur.

Wait queues are represented in the kernel by wake_queue_head_t. They are created statically via DECLARE_WAITQUEUE() or dynamically via init_waitqueue_head(). Processes put themselves on a wait queue and mark themselves not runnable. When the event associated with the wait queue occurs, the processes on the queue are awakened.

It is important to implement sleeping and waking correctly, to avoid race conditions. Otherwise, it is possible to go to sleep after the condition becomes true, in which case the task might sleep indefinitely. Therefore, the recommended method for sleeping in the kernel is a bit more complicated:

/* `q' is the wait queue we wish to sleep on */

add_wait_queue(q, &wait);
while (!condition) { /* condition is the event that we are waiting for */
    prepare_to_wait(&q, &wait, TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE);
    if (signal_pending(current))
        /* handle signal */
finish_wait(&q, &wait);

The task performs the following steps to add itself to a wait queue:

  1. Creates a wait queue entry via the macro DEFINE_WAIT().
  2. Adds itself to a wait queue via add_wait_queue(). This wait queue awakens the process when the condition for which it is waiting occurs. Of course, there needs to be code elsewhere that calls wake_up() on the queue when the event actually does occur.
  3. Calls prepare_to_wait() to change the process state to either TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE or TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE. This function also adds the task back to the wait queue if necessary, which is needed on subsequent iterations of the loop.
  4. If the state is set to TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE, a signal wakes the process up. This is called a spurious wake up (a wake-up not caused by the occurrence of the event). So check and handle signals.
  5. When the task awakens, it again checks whether the condition is true. If it is, it exits the loop. Otherwise, it again calls schedule() and repeats.
  6. After the condition is true, the task sets itself to TASK_RUNNING and removes itself from the wait queue via finish_wait().

If the condition occurs before the task goes to sleep, the loop terminates, and the task does not erroneously go to sleep. Note that kernel code often has to perform various other tasks in the body of the loop. For example, it might need to release locks before calling schedule() and reacquire them after or react to other events.

The function inotify_read() in fs/notify/inotify/inotify_user.c, which handles reading from the inotify file descriptor, is a straightforward example of using wait queues:

static ssize_t inotify_read(struct file *file, char __user *buf,
                size_t count, loff_t *pos)
    struct fsnotify_group *group;
    struct fsnotify_event *kevent;
    char __user *start;
    int ret;

    start = buf;
    group = file->private_data;

    while (1) {
        prepare_to_wait(&group->notification_waitq, &wait, TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE);

        kevent = get_one_event(group, count);

        if (kevent) {
            ret = PTR_ERR(kevent);
            if (IS_ERR(kevent))
            ret = copy_event_to_user(group, kevent, buf);
            if (ret < 0)
            buf += ret;
            count -= ret;

        ret = -EAGAIN;
        if (file->f_flags & O_NONBLOCK)
        ret = -EINTR;
        if (signal_pending(current))

        if (start != buf)


    finish_wait(&group->notification_waitq, &wait);
    if (start != buf && ret != -EFAULT)
        ret = buf - start;
    return ret;

Some notes of the function above:

Waking Up

wake_up() wakes up all the tasks waiting on the given wait queue. It does the following:

Since there are spurious wake-ups, just because a task is awakened does not mean that the event for which the task is waiting has occurred. Sleeping should always be handled in a loop that ensures that the condition for which the task is waiting has indeed occurred. The figure below depicts the relationship between each scheduler state.

Figure 4.1 Sleeping and waking up.

Preemption and Context Switching

Context switching, the switching from one runnable task to another, is handled by the context_switch() function defined in kernel/sched.c. It is called by schedule() when a new process has been selected to run. It does two basic jobs:

The need_resched flag *

The kernel must know when to call schedule(). If it called schedule() only when code explicitly did so, user-space programs could run indefinitely.

The kernel provides the need_resched flag to signify whether a reschedule should be performed.

The kernel checks the flag, sees that it is set, and calls schedule() to switch to a new process. The flag is a message to the kernel that the scheduler should be invoked as soon as possible because another process deserves to run.

Upon returning to user-space or returning from an interrupt, the need_resched flag is checked. If it is set, the kernel invokes the scheduler before continuing.

The table below lists functions for accessing and manipulating need_resched:

Function Purpose
set_tsk_need_resched() Set the need_resched flag in the given process.
clear_tsk_need_resched() Clear the need_resched flag in the given process.
need_resched() Test the value of the need_resched flag; return true if set and false otherwise.

The flag is per-process, and not simply global, because it is faster to access a value in the process descriptor (because of the speed of current and high probability of it being cache hot) than a global variable. Historically, the flag was global before the 2.2 kernel. In 2.2 and 2.4, the flag was an int inside the task_struct. In 2.6, it was moved into a single bit of a special flag variable inside the thread_info structure (arch/x86/include/asm/thread_info.h#L26).

User Preemption

User preemption occurs when the kernel is about to return to user-space, need_resched is set, and therefore, the scheduler is invoked. If the kernel is returning to user-space, it knows it is in a safe quiescent state. In other words, if it is safe to continue executing the current task, it is also safe to pick a new task to execute.

Whenever the kernel is preparing to return to user-space either on return from an interrupt or after a system call, the value of need_resched is checked. If it is set, the scheduler is invoked to select a new (more fit) process to execute. Both the return paths for return from interrupt and return from system call are architecture-dependent and typically implemented in assembly in entry.S (which, aside from kernel entry code, also contains kernel exit code).

In conclusion, user preemption can occur:

Kernel Preemption

In non-preemptive kernels, kernel code runs until completion. That is, the scheduler cannot reschedule a task while it is in the kernel: kernel code is scheduled cooperatively, not preemptively. Kernel code runs until it finishes (returns to user-space) or explicitly blocks.

The Linux kernel (since 2.6), unlike most other Unix variants and many other operating systems, is a fully preemptive kernel. It is possible to preempt a task at any point, so long as the kernel is in a state in which it is safe to reschedule.

The kernel can preempt a task running in the kernel so long as it does not hold a lock. Locks are used as markers of regions of non-preemptibility. Because the kernel is SMP-safe, if a lock is not held, the current code is reentrant and capable of being preempted.

The preemption counter preempt_count *

To support kernel preemption, preemption counter, preempt_count (arch/x86/include/asm/thread_info.h#L32), was added to each process's thread_info. This counter begins at zero and increments once for each lock that is acquired and decrements once for each lock that is released. When the counter is zero, the kernel is preemptible. Upon return from interrupt, if returning to kernel-space, the kernel checks the values of need_resched and preempt_count:

Enabling and disabling kernel preemption is sometimes required in kernel code (discussed in Chapter 9).

Explicit kernel preemption *

Kernel preemption can also occur explicitly, when a task in ther kernel does either of the following:

This form of kernel preemption has always been supported because no additional logic is required to ensure that the kernel is in a state that is safe to preempt. It is assumed that the code that explicitly calls schedule() knows it is safe to reschedule.

In conclusion, kernel preemption can occur:

Real-Time Scheduling Policies

Linux provides two real-time scheduling policies:

Via the scheduling classes framework, these real-time policies are managed not by the Completely Fair Scheduler, but by a special real-time scheduler, defined in kernel/sched_rt.c.

The SCHED_FIFO policy *

SCHED_FIFO implements a simple first-in, first-out scheduling algorithm without timeslices.

The SCHED_RR policy *

SCHED_RR is identical to SCHED_FIFO except that each process can run only until it exhausts a predetermined timeslice. In other words, SCHED_RR is SCHED_FIFO with timeslices. It is a real-time, round-robin scheduling algorithm.

Both real-time scheduling policies implement static priorities. The kernel does not calculate dynamic priority values for real-time tasks.This ensures that a real-time process at a given priority always preempts a process at a lower priority.

Hard real-time and soft real-time

The real-time scheduling policies in Linux provide soft real-time behavior. Linux makes no guarantees on the capability to schedule real-time tasks. Despite not having a design that guarantees hard real-time behavior, the real-time scheduling performance in Linux is quite good. The 2.6 Linux kernel is capable of meeting stringent timing requirements.

Real-time priorities range inclusively from 0 to MAX_RT_PRIO - 1. By default, this range is 0 to 99, since MAX_RT_PRIO is 100. This priority space is shared with the nice values of SCHED_NORMAL tasks: They use the space from MAX_RT_PRIO to (MAX_RT_PRIO + 40). By default, this means the –20 to +19 nice range maps directly onto the priority space from 100 to 139.

Default priority ranges:

Linux provides a family of system calls for the management of scheduler parameters, which allow manipulation of process priority, scheduling policy, and processor affinity, yielding the processor to other tasks.

The table below lists the system calls with brief descriptions. Their implementation in the kernel is discussed in Chapter 5.

System Call Description
nice() Sets a process's nice value
sched_setscheduler() Sets a process's scheduling policy
sched_getscheduler() Gets a process's scheduling policy
sched_setparam() Sets a process's real-time priority
sched_getparam() Gets a process's real-time priority
sched_get_priority_max() Gets the maximum real-time priority
sched_get_priority_min() Gets the minimum real-time priority
sched_rr_get_interval() Gets a process's timeslice value
sched_setaffinity() Sets a process's processor affinity
sched_getaffinity() Gets a process's processor affinity
sched_yield() Temporarily yields the processor

Processor Affinity System Calls

The Linux scheduler enforces hard processor affinity, which means that, aside from providing soft or natural affinity by attempting to keep processes on the same processor, the scheduler enables a user to enforce "a task must remain on this subset of the available processors no matter what".

TThe hard affinity is stored as a bitmask in the task's task_struct as cpus_allowed (include/linux/sched.h#L1210). The bitmask contains one bit per possible processor on the system. By default, all bits are set and, therefore, a process is potentially runnable on any processor. The following system calls set and get the bitmask:

The kernel enforces hard affinity in a simple manner:

  1. When a process is initially created, it inherits its parent's affinity mask. Because the parent is running on an allowed processor, the child thus runs on an allowed processor.
  2. When a processor's affinity is changed, the kernel uses the migration threads to push the task onto a legal processor. (See Doubts and Solutions)
  3. The load balancer pulls tasks to only an allowed processor

Therefore, a process only ever runs on a processor whose bit is set in the cpus_allowed field of its process descriptor.

Yielding Processor Time

Linux provides the sched_yield() system call as a mechanism for a process to explicitly yield the processor to other waiting processes.

Applications and even kernel code should be certain they truly want to give up the processor before calling sched_yield().

Kernel code, as a convenience, can call yield(), which ensures that the task's state is TASK_RUNNING and then call sched_yield(). User-space applications use the sched_yield() system call.


Meeting the demands of process scheduling is nontrivial. A large number of runnable processes, scalability concerns, trade-offs between latency and throughput, and the demands of various workloads make a one-size-fits-all algorithm hard to achieve. Linux kernel's new CFS process scheduler, comes close to appeasing all parties and providing an optimal solution for most use cases with good scalability. [p67]

Doubts and Solutions


p66 on Processor Affinity. "migration threads" and "load balancer" is not detailed.