This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Real-Time
Linux provides two real-time scheduling policies, SCHED_FF and SCHED_RR. The normal, not real-time scheduling policy is SCHED_OTHER. SCHED_FIFO implements a simple first-in, first-out scheduling algorithm without timeslices. A runnable SCHED_FIFO task will always be scheduled over any SCHED_OTHER tasks. When a SCHED_FIFO task becomes runnable, it will continue to run until it blocks or explicitly yields the processor; it has no timeslice and can run indefinitely. Two or more SCHED_FIFO tasks at the same priority run round robin. If a SCHED_FIFO task is runnable, all tasks at a lower priority cannot run until it finishes.
SCHED_RR is identical to SCHED_FIFO except that each process can only run until it exhausts a predetermined timeslice. That is, 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 will always preempt a process at a lower priority.
The real-time scheduling policies in Linux provide soft real-time behavior. Soft real-time refers to the notion that the kernel tries to schedule applications within timing deadlines, but the kernel does not promise to always be able to fulfill them. Conversely, hard real-time systems are guaranteed to meet any scheduling requirements within certain limits. Linux makes no guarantees on the ability to schedule real-time tasks. The Linux scheduling policy, however, does ensure real-time tasks are running whenever they are runnable. Despite not having a design that guarantees hard real-time behavior, the real-time scheduling performance in Linux is quite good. The 2.6 kernel is capable of meeting very stringent timing requirements.
Real-time priorities range inclusively from one to MAX_RT_PRIO minus one. By default, MAX_RT_PRIO is 100—therefore, the default real-time priority range is one to 99. This priority space is shared with the nice values of SCHED_OTHER 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 100 to 140 priority range.