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authorPaulo Alcantara <pc@manguebit.org>2026-09-26 19:20:30 -0300
committerPaulo Alcantara <pc@manguebit.org>2026-09-30 14:24:12 -0300
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tree23efdcaa0b8031f6ac6f57b6734d18d6c1adc6f2 /Documentation/admin-guide/cpu-load.rst
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netfs: zero the tail of a short DIO/unbuffered readgrafted
The buffered read collector zero-fills the tail of a short read that stops below the inode's i_size (netfs_clear_unread()), so a read that races an extending write still returns the expected number of bytes. The non-buffered collector path does no such thing: it just records how much was transferred. Add the same zero-fill for the non-buffered case, gated on NETFS_SREQ_CLEAR_TAIL: a subreq's source sets that flag when a short result from it is known to be safe to treat as a hole, as opposed to NETFS_SREQ_HIT_EOF, which means the read genuinely ran off the end of the file and should be reported short as-is. Only CLEAR_TAIL should zero-fill here; a real EOF must stay a real short read. No source currently sets CLEAR_TAIL on an unbuffered/DIO subrequest, so this is inert on its own -- a following change teaches cifs to set it in the one case that needs it. Fixes: e2d46f2ec332 ("netfs: Change the read result collector to only use one work item") Reviewed-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> Reviewed-by: Namjae Jeon <linkinjeon@kernel.org> Signed-off-by: Paulo Alcantara <pc@manguebit.org> Cc: Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org> Cc: Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org> Cc: Ronnie Sahlberg <ronniesahlberg@gmail.com> Cc: Shyam Prasad N <sprasad@microsoft.com> Cc: Tom Talpey <tom@talpey.com> Cc: Bharath SM <bharathsm@microsoft.com> Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
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+========
+CPU load
+========
+
+Linux exports various bits of information via ``/proc/stat`` and
+``/proc/uptime`` that userland tools, such as top(1), use to calculate
+the average time system spent in a particular state, for example::
+
+ $ iostat
+ Linux 2.6.18.3-exp (linmac) 02/20/2007
+
+ avg-cpu: %user %nice %system %iowait %steal %idle
+ 10.01 0.00 2.92 5.44 0.00 81.63
+
+ ...
+
+Here the system thinks that over the default sampling period the
+system spent 10.01% of the time doing work in user space, 2.92% in the
+kernel, and was overall 81.63% of the time idle.
+
+In most cases the ``/proc/stat`` information reflects the reality quite
+closely, however due to the nature of how/when the kernel collects
+this data sometimes it can not be trusted at all.
+
+So how is this information collected? Whenever timer interrupt is
+signalled the kernel looks what kind of task was running at this
+moment and increments the counter that corresponds to this tasks
+kind/state. The problem with this is that the system could have
+switched between various states multiple times between two timer
+interrupts yet the counter is incremented only for the last state.
+
+
+Example
+-------
+
+If we imagine the system with one task that periodically burns cycles
+in the following manner::
+
+ time line between two timer interrupts
+ |--------------------------------------|
+ ^ ^
+ |_ something begins working |
+ |_ something goes to sleep
+ (only to be awaken quite soon)
+
+In the above situation the system will be 0% loaded according to the
+``/proc/stat`` (since the timer interrupt will always happen when the
+system is executing the idle handler), but in reality the load is
+closer to 99%.
+
+One can imagine many more situations where this behavior of the kernel
+will lead to quite erratic information inside ``/proc/stat``::
+
+
+ /* gcc -o hog smallhog.c */
+ #include <time.h>
+ #include <limits.h>
+ #include <signal.h>
+ #include <sys/time.h>
+ #define HIST 10
+
+ static volatile sig_atomic_t stop;
+
+ static void sighandler(int signr)
+ {
+ (void) signr;
+ stop = 1;
+ }
+
+ static unsigned long hog (unsigned long niters)
+ {
+ stop = 0;
+ while (!stop && --niters);
+ return niters;
+ }
+
+ int main (void)
+ {
+ int i;
+ struct itimerval it = {
+ .it_interval = { .tv_sec = 0, .tv_usec = 1 },
+ .it_value = { .tv_sec = 0, .tv_usec = 1 } };
+ sigset_t set;
+ unsigned long v[HIST];
+ double tmp = 0.0;
+ unsigned long n;
+ signal(SIGALRM, &sighandler);
+ setitimer(ITIMER_REAL, &it, NULL);
+
+ hog (ULONG_MAX);
+ for (i = 0; i < HIST; ++i) v[i] = ULONG_MAX - hog(ULONG_MAX);
+ for (i = 0; i < HIST; ++i) tmp += v[i];
+ tmp /= HIST;
+ n = tmp - (tmp / 3.0);
+
+ sigemptyset(&set);
+ sigaddset(&set, SIGALRM);
+
+ for (;;) {
+ hog(n);
+ sigwait(&set, &i);
+ }
+ return 0;
+ }
+
+
+References
+----------
+
+- https://lore.kernel.org/r/loom.20070212T063225-663@post.gmane.org
+- Documentation/filesystems/proc.rst (1.8)
+
+
+Thanks
+------
+
+Con Kolivas, Pavel Machek