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class_scheduling(4)					   class_scheduling(4)

NAME
       class_scheduling,  class.h - Allocate CPU resources based on scheduling
       classes

SYNOPSIS
       #include <sys/class.h>

DESCRIPTION
       The class scheduling features included in the operating system software
       let  you restrict the percentage of CPU time allowed different kinds of
       users and tasks. This helps you allocate CPU resources so that the most
       important  work	receives the processing time it requires. For example,
       you might want to run two versions of a	production  database  on  your
       system.	One version is used as part of your business operations, while
       the other is a test copy, with different tuning parameters.   The  test
       database	 can be assigned to a class that has a lower percentage of CPU
       time so that your daily operations are not impacted by the testing.  As
       another example, you might want to give background daemons, such as the
       print spooler, less access time to CPUs to improve  response  time  for
       interactive users.

       By  using  the class_admin utility, you can: Create and maintain one or
       more databases of scheduling classes, each of  which  has  a  specified
       percentage  of  CPU  time.  The	databases  are typically stored in the
       /etc/class directory and cannot be edited manually. You can set up dif‐
       ferent  class  databases	 for different time intervals during a 24-hour
       period (for example, one database that favors interactive users	during
       the  day	 and  another  that favors batch jobs at night). A class_admin
       load command can then be included as a cron job to load the appropriate
       database	 into shared memory at a certain time.	Assign members to dif‐
       ferent classes. Members assigned to a particular class  can  be	users,
       groups,	processes,  process  groups,  sessions, or some combination of
       these.  Enable and disable the daemon that schedules execution of  dif‐
       ferent tasks according to what you've defined in the database currently
       loaded into memory. Among the configuration parameters you supply  dur‐
       ing  setup  of  the class database is a time interval that controls how
       often the daemon refreshes the structure used by the kernel  to	imple‐
       ment your class scheduling priorities.

       You  cannot  use	 the class_admin utility to add application names to a
       class. However, after defining a class  in  the	current	 database  and
       enabling class scheduling, you can use runclass commands to launch pro‐
       grams in that class. When you do this, identifiers for all the applica‐
       tion  processes	are  automatically  added  as members of the specified
       class. The runclass command is particularly useful as a cron  job  that
       executes	 after	the one that enables class scheduling and loads a par‐
       ticular class database into memory.

       The libclass library provides programming routines for setting  up  and
       using  class scheduling. The name for each routine in this library uses
       the format class_operation, for example class_create(). A complete list
       of routines is provided in the SEE ALSO section.

   How Class Scheduling Works
       The  kernel  has	 very  little  internal knowledge of class scheduling.
       Much of the work done by the class scheduler is done in user space.  To
       the  kernel, a class is simply an element in an array of integers, each
       specifying a number of clock ticks that are  available  for  a  certain
       time interval. The time interval is set when the class scheduling data‐
       base is configured, and the integer values vary, depending on  the  CPU
       percentage  specified  for the different classes. A thread that is sub‐
       ject to class scheduling has an index into the  array.  Each  time  the
       thread  uses  CPU time, the kernel decrements the number of clock ticks
       used from the array element. When the count reaches zero, the thread is
       prevented from running.

       A  class database can be configured to impose CPU percentages in either
       a hard or soft way. Hard percentages (the default) mean	that,  once  a
       thread  uses  its allotted percentage of CPU time, it is prevented from
       running until the next time interval. Soft percentages mean that thread
       execution  can continue after the CPU percentage is reached if the sys‐
       tem has idle CPUs (if there is no contention for CPU time among users).
       Hard percentages risk wasting CPU cycles; however, they are appropriate
       for a system on which users contract and pay for a  certain  allocation
       of system resources..

       When  the class scheduler daemon is started, it loads the database into
       memory, creates an initial array of clock-tick  integers	 used  by  the
       kernel,	and writes this array to the kernel. Along with the array, the
       daemon gives the kernel the time interval during which integers in  the
       array  are  to  be  decremented. Then the daemon alternately sleeps and
       wakes up to refresh the array. The daemon calculates the	 total	number
       of clock ticks in the interval during which it sleeps by using the fol‐
       lowing formula:

       interval_in_seconds * clock_ticks_per_second * number_of_CPUs

       The deamon then allocates the total number of clock ticks among classes
       according  to the specified percentages, creates the array of integers,
       and writes the array to the kernel. Should the daemon terminate or fail
       to  wake	 up,  the kernel automatically disables class scheduling after
       twice the specified time interval has passed.  If  this	happens,  pro‐
       cesses  belonging to scheduling classes then run freely, no longer sub‐
       ject to their CPU percentage restrictions.

       Class scheduling always operates in the context of  a  soft  partition,
       which  is currently mapped to a processor set. (See processor_sets(4).)
       This means that “number_of_CPUs” in the	preceding  formula  represents
       the number of CPUs in the partition associated with the class database.
       If user-defined partitions do not exist on the system, all system  CPUs
       belong  to  the default partition (processor set 0), and the system can
       have only one active database and one instance  of  a  class  scheduler
       daemon.	If  system CPUs have been allocated into different partitions,
       you have the option of setting up class scheduling on one  or  more  of
       the available partitions.

       By default, the class_admin utility operates on the system default par‐
       tition; however, the utility includes the  setp	subcommand  to	change
       partition context for subsequent subcommands.  For each partition where
       you want class scheduling to be implemented, you must create  at	 least
       one  class  scheduling  database	 and  enable  class  scheduling.   See
       class_admin(8) for details.

       A process may be represented in a class database	 by  members  in  more
       than  one class. For example, the group ID representing the group staff
       might be a member of class A and the  user  ID  representing  the  user
       guest  might  be	 a  member  of class B. If user guest belongs to group
       staff, the user belongs to two classes. In such cases, the  class  con‐
       taining	the  most  restrictive type of ID applies to the process.  For
       the example just described, user ID is more restrictive than group  ID,
       so  the	process	 for  user guest would execute in class B. When member
       types are ranked from least to most restrictive, the order is  as  fol‐
       lows: group ID, user ID, session ID, process group ID, process ID.

       Class  scheduling is subject to the following limits, as defined in the
       class.h header  file:  Maximum  of  partitions  (class  database/daemon
       pairs) per system: 100 Maximum number of classes per database: 100 Max‐
       imum number of members across all classes: 2500 Maximum number of char‐
       acters in a class database pathname (for save and load subcommands): 80
       Maximum number of characters in a class name: 20

       Class scheduling is subject to the following restrictions: You must  be
       superuser to invoke the class_admin utility.  Users cannot use the run‐
       class command to raise an application's priority above  what  it	 would
       otherwise  have	through	 definitions  in  the class database. In other
       words, a user who is a member of a class entitled to a certain percent‐
       age  of	CPU time cannot use the runclass command to start applications
       at a higher priority than what the user is entitled to.	For most oper‐
       ations  that  applications  perform  by	using routines in the libclass
       library, root permission is required.

   Using Class Scheduling
       To implement class scheduling, you must first create  a	database  file
       and  populate the file with one or more classes.	 You assign each class
       a percentage of the total CPU time available.  One or more applications
       or  groups of applications can be assigned to a class, specified by the
       appropriate identifying number, such as a GID, UID, or PID. Any identi‐
       fiers that are temporary, such as a PID, do not persist across a reboot
       and cease to exist when a task is completed.  Therefore, they  have  no
       effect  when the system or task is restarted. For this reason, the mem‐
       bers you add to the database when first creating it  are	 usually  user
       and group identifiers.

       After  the  database is established, you can start the class scheduling
       daemon to put the CPU access restrictions into effect.  The class_admin
       utility has subcommands that let you review classes, change members and
       CPU percentages, delete members or entire classes, and review  assigned
       CPU  percentages	 against actual use. You can invoke the utility either
       interactively or by using a script.

       Once a class scheduling database is configured  and  its	 corresponding
       daemon  enabled,	 you  can  start  applications	in any of the existing
       classes by using the runclass command. This allows  you	to  indirectly
       add  entirely new processes to a class. It also allows you to temporar‐
       ily lower or (if you have superuser privilege) increase	the  CPU  per‐
       centages for processes that otherwise startup in a class with a differ‐
       ent CPU percentage. For example, you might set a value for  interactive
       operations  that is much higher than background processes such as print
       daemons.	 If it is later necessary to temporarily use the higher	 value
       for a particular print job, you can use the runclass command to execute
       the lpd daemon in the same class as interactive operations.  After  the
       print  job has completed, the class_admin delete subcommand can be used
       to remove the process identifier for lpd from the class.

       The following sections suggest a systematic  approach  to  using	 class
       scheduling,  although  you can use it equally well to quickly fix a CPU
       resource sharing problem.

   Planning CPU Resource Allocation
       How you allocate CPU resources will depend on your  system  environment
       and  which resources and priorities must be considered.	A typical sce‐
       nario is to assign a higher priority to interactive tasks so that users
       do  not	encounter  long response times.	 Most batch or background pro‐
       cesses will be assigned a lower priority,  while	 some  specific	 back‐
       ground  processes  may  require	a  higher priority.  For example, if a
       nightly backup is being performed, you might not want it to have such a
       low priority that it does not complete in a reasonable time.

       An  alternative	scenario is if there are critical realtime tasks, such
       as in process-control applications,  that  should  take	priority  over
       interactive processes. For this scenario, you should design a baseline,
       assigning processes to classes and then monitor tasks and user feedback
       to  tune	 the  database by moving tasks from class to class or changing
       the CPU access time of the classes.

       While thinking about  CPU  resource  allocation,	 you  need  to	decide
       whether	you should use class scheduling, a user-defined processor set,
       or both on your system. CPUs in a user-defined processor set cannot  be
       used  by	 any process that is not explicitly run on that processor set.
       Sometimes reserving specific CPUs for use only by certain applications,
       such  as those doing realtime process control, is warranted. For criti‐
       cal applications, a processor set can provide  a	 better	 guarantee  of
       immediate  CPU availability than class scheduling if the system load is
       high and	 load  patterns	 are  not  always  predictable.	 When  running
       selected	 applications  in  a  non-default processor set, you trade off
       potential waste of CPU resources to guarantee that CPUs	are  available
       for  the applications running in that processor set. Setting “soft” CPU
       percentages for scheduling classes allows the kernel to apply only  the
       idle  CPUs  in  the processor set for which the class database was cre‐
       ated. The kernel cannot use idle CPUs in one processor set to ease  CPU
       contention  by  processes  running in another processor set. This means
       that the performance of less critical applications might not be accept‐
       able  after  they  are  restricted to the reduced number of CPUs in the
       default processor set. Using class scheduling in	 a  processor  set  to
       better  control	CPU access is not likely to help when there are simply
       too few CPUs to do the required amount of work.

       Sometimes your site might be running an	application  that  incorrectly
       spawns  large  numbers  of  threads  that  immediately  grab  more  CPU
       resources than the application needs. Until the application can be cor‐
       rected,	you  can define a new processor set, populate it with a subset
       of the system CPUs, and use the runon command to start the  application
       in the new processor set. In this case, it might or might not be worth‐
       while to use class  scheduling  in  the	default	 processor  set	 where
       remaining  applications are run and interactive user processes are run‐
       ning.

       If your intention is simply to apply a more appropriate	allocation  of
       CPU  resources than the kernel applies by default, try class scheduling
       by itself (on the default processor set while it	 contains  all	system
       CPUs)  to  see  if  this	 approach accomplishes what you want. Consider
       defining and using an additional processor set in  order	 to  meet  the
       requirements of applications with unusual requirements.

   Steps for Setting Up and Using Class Scheduling
       The usual process for setting up class scheduling is as follows: Decide
       how you want to allocate the CPU resources (decide on  class  groupings
       of  users and tasks).  Use the class_admin utility's subcommands to set
       up and maintain the class database: Configure the  database.  For  this
       step,  you  specify:  whether  you  want	 a default class for processes
       (other than those for UID 0) that are not members of  the  classes  you
       define,	whether	 you want hard or soft enforcement of CPU percentages,
       and how frequently the scheduler checks CPU usage by  classes.	Create
       classes and add any users and groups to classes by using the create and
       add subcommands.	 When creating classes, keep in mind the  20-character
       restriction  on	class  names and the fact that CPU percentages for all
       your classes cannot add up to more  than	 100  percent.	 Verify	 class
       entries	with  the  show	 subcommand.  Use the save subcommand to write
       database entries to /etc/class/filename.	 Keep in mind the 80-character
       pathname	 restriction  if  you  prefer your own directory locations and
       names for class databases.  Use the  enable  subcommand	to  start  the
       scheduler.

	      Applications are usually added to classes after class scheduling
	      is enabled by using the runclass command, which is not a subcom‐
	      mand  in	the  class_admin utility.  Use the stats subcommand to
	      check target and actual CPU usages for the different classes.

       The following example shows an  interactive  class_admin	 session  that
       sets  up	 two  class  databases (daytime and nighttime) for the default
       partition. In this example, both databases have the  same  two  classes
       (interactive_users  and	batch_jobs),  however, the CPU percentages for
       these classes and the time interval for resetting class usage  are  set
       differently. After the two databases are created and saved to disk, the
       daytime database	 is  loaded  into  memory,  the	 scheduler  daemon  is
       enabled, and runtime statistics are checked: # class_admin
			   Class Scheduler Administration configure:

       Shall  processes	 that  have  not been explicitly assigned to a defined
       class be assigned to a 'default' class?	Enter (yes/no) [no]:

       Enforce class scheduling when  the  CPU	is  otherwise  idle?  (yes/no)
       [yes]: no

       How often do you want the system to reset class usage?  Enter number of
       seconds (1): class> show Configuration:
	-Processes not explicitly defined in the database are not
	 class scheduled.
	-If the processor has some idle time, class scheduled processes are
	 allowed to exceed their cpu percentage.
	-The class scheduler will check class CPU usage every 1 seconds.

       current partition: 0 current  database:	/etc/class/part.default	 Class
       scheduler status: disabled

       classes:

       class> create interactive_users 50 interactive_users created at 50% cpu
       usage class> create batch_jobs 10 batch_jobs created at 10%  cpu	 usage
       class>  add  interactive_users uid 234 457 235 uid 234 457 235 added to
       interactive_users.     class>	save	/etc/class/daytime    database
       /etc/class/daytime  saved  class>  modify interactive_users 10 interac‐
       tive_users targeted at 10% usage class> modify batch_jobs 50 batch_jobs
       targeted	 at  50%  class>  configure Shall processes that have not been
       explicitly assigned to a defined	 class	be  assigned  to  a  'default'
       class?  Enter (yes/no) [no]:

       Enforce	class  scheduling  when	 the  CPU  is otherwise idle? (yes/no)
       [yes]: no

       How often do you want the system to reset class usage?  Enter number of
       seconds	  (1):	  5    class>	save   /etc/class/nighttime   database
       /etc/class/nighttime saved class> load /etc/class/daytime

       The following warning and prompt is displayed because this session  has
       not saved any changes to the /etc/class/part.default file, which is the
       database to which context was set at the beginning of  the  interactive
       session.	 However,  all	permanent changes were saved to databases with
       more  meaningful	 names,	 and  there  is	 no  intention	to   put   the
       /etc/class/part.default	database  into	use. Therefore, the utility is
       told to continue with the load operation: current database modified and
       not  saved  load	 new  database	anyway?	 (yes/no)  [yes]: yes database
       /etc/class/daytime loaded class> enable class scheduler enabled class>

       In another terminal window, the runclass command is used to  start  one
       or  two low-priority applications in the batch_jobs class. For example:
       # runclass batch_jobs program_name

       Then,  runtime  statistics  can	be  checked  in	 the  window  of   the
       class_admin session: class> stats

	    Class scheduler status: enabled

	    class   name	  target  percentage	    actual  percentage
	    interactive_users		      50%			 40.0%
	    batch_jobs			   10%			   9.0% class>

       While the database is loaded and class scheduling enabled, you can mod‐
       ify the database dynamically to achieve the results you want  by	 using
       the  configure, change, add, and destroy subcommands, interspersed with
       the show and stats subcommands to check results.	 Enter	a  final  save
       /etc/class/filename subcommand when you are satisfied with your modifi‐
       cations.

       When run in interactive mode, the class_admin utility asks on  exit  or
       quit whether you want to write database changes to disk if you have not
       explicitly saved them during your session. If the utility is run from a
       script,	any  changes to the class database are saved to disk automati‐
       cally. The changes that are saved to disk do  not  include  changes  in
       class  membership for temporary identifiers (process IDs, process group
       IDs, and session IDs)  because  these  do  not  persist	across	system
       reboots.	 It  is always a good idea to do explicit save operations when
       you intend to create or modify class databases  that  have  non-default
       names or that are stored in directories other than /etc/class.

       You  also  have the programming option of using the class_* routines in
       the libclass library to do the operations discussed in this section.

FILES
       Default directory and name for the class database in the system default
       partition  (processor  set  0).	Default directory and name for a class
       database in a  user-defined  partition  (processor  set	number	2  and
       higher).	  Header file defining the prototypes for routines in the lib‐
       class library, as well as the type, structure, and other kinds of defi‐
       nitions used by those routines.	Class scheduler daemon.

SEE ALSO
       Commands: runclass(1), class_admin(8)

       Files: processor_sets(4)

       Functions:    class_add(3),    class_change(3),	 class_change_name(3),
       class_close(3),	 class_configure(3),   class_create(3),	   class_data‐
       base_file_exists(3),	  class_database_modified(3),	   class_data‐
       base_name(3),  class_delete(3),	 class_destroy(3),   class_disable(3),
       class_get_class_members(3),     class_get_classes(3),	class_get_con‐
       fig_stats(3),	      class_load_database(3),		class_open(3),
       class_restore_database(3), class_save_database(3)

							   class_scheduling(4)
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