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Process scheduling

Process scheduling

The schedulable entity for the system is the light-weight process (LWP). Scheduling priorities and classes are attributes of LWPs and not processes. When scheduling system calls accept a process on which to operate, the operation is applied to each LWP in the process. The system scheduler determines when LWPs run. It maintains priorities based on configuration parameters, process behavior, and user requests, and it uses these priorities to assign LWPs to the CPU.

By default, the scheduler uses a time-sharing policy similar to the policy used in previous releases. A time-sharing policy adjusts priorities dynamically in an attempt to provide good response time to interactive LWPs and good throughput to CPU-intensive LWPs. A fixed class policy is now available that is similar to the time-sharing policy except that it does not adjust priorities.

The scheduler also offers a fixed priority scheduling policy. Fixed priority scheduling, previously known as real-time scheduling, allows users to set fixed priorities on a per-process or LWP basis. In the default configuration, the highest-priority fixed priority LWP always gets the CPU as soon as it is runnable, even if system processes are runnable. An application can therefore specify the exact order in which LWPs run. An application also can be written so that its fixed priority LWPs have a guaranteed response time from the system.

Users can have absolute control over the sequence in which certain LWPs run, and the amount of time each LWP can use the CPU before another LWP can use the CPU.

For most environments, the default scheduler configuration works well and no fixed priority LWPs are needed; you should not change configuration parameters and users should not change scheduler properties of their applications. However, for some applications with strict timing constraints, fixed priority LWPs are the only way to guarantee that the application's requirements are met.


NOTE: Fixed priority LWPs used carelessly can have a dramatic negative effect on the performance of time-sharing LWPs.

Administrators can manage the relationship between processes and processors. Processors can be taken offline or brought online. Processes can be bound to a specific processor and processors can be bound exclusively by a process. Note that exclusive binding applies only to user-level processes and not to kernel drivers. That is, the exclusive binding of a user-level process excludes other user level processes, but not a kernel driver.

This topic is addressed to administrators who need to adjust the default configuration for the scheduler. You should understand the scheduler for these reasons:

For programming information on the scheduler, see ``Process scheduling'' The primary user command for controlling process and LWP scheduling is priocntl(1). The primary function call for controlling process and LWP scheduling is priocntl(2). Note that aging is a page management concept and is not affected by the scheduler.

The rest of this topic is organized as follows:


Next topic: Overview of the process scheduler

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UnixWare 7 Release 7.1.4 - 22 April 2004