Solaris Dynamic Tracing Guide

`tick`

Solaris uses tick-based CPU accounting, in which a system clock interrupt fires at a fixed interval and attributes CPU utilization to the threads and processes running at the time of the tick. The following example shows how to use the tick probe to observe this attribution:

# dtrace -n sched:::tick'{@[stringof(args[1]->pr_fname)] = count()}'
^C
  arch                                                              1
  sh                                                                1
  sed                                                               1
  echo                                                              1
  ls                                                                1
  FvwmAuto                                                          1
  pwd                                                               1
  awk                                                               2
  basename                                                          2
  expr                                                              2
  resize                                                            2
  tput                                                              2
  uname                                                             2
  fsflush                                                           2
  dirname                                                           4
  vim                                                               9
  fvwm2                                                            10
  ksh                                                              19
  xterm                                                            21
  Xsun                                                             93
  MozillaFirebird                                                 260

The system clock frequency varies from operating system to operating system, but generally ranges from 25 hertz to 1024 hertz. The Solaris system clock frequency is adjustable, but defaults to 100 hertz.

The tick probe only fires if the system clock detects a runnable thread. To use the tick probe to observe the system clock's frequency, you must have a thread that is always runnable. In one window, create a looping shell as shown in the following example:

$ while true ; do let i=0 ; done

In another window, run the following script:

uint64_t last[int];

sched:::tick
/last[cpu]/
{
	@[cpu] = min(timestamp - last[cpu]);
}

sched:::tick
{
	last[cpu] = timestamp;
}

# dtrace -s ./ticktime.d
dtrace: script './ticktime.d' matched 2 probes
^C

  0          9883789

The minimum interval is 9.8 millisecond, which indicates that the default clock tick frequency is 10 milliseconds (100 hertz). The observed minimum is somewhat less than 10 milliseconds due to jitter.

One deficiency of tick-based accounting is that the system clock that performs accounting is often also responsible for dispatching any time-related scheduling activity. As a result, if a thread is to perform some amount of work every clock tick (that is, every 10 milliseconds), the system will either over-account for the thread or under-account for the thread, depending on whether the accounting is done before or after time-related dispatching scheduling activity. In Solaris, accounting is performed before time-related dispatching. As a result, the system will under-account for threads running at regular interval. If such threads run for less than the clock tick interval, they can effectively “hide” behind the clock tick. The following example shows the degree to which the system has such threads:

sched:::tick,
sched:::enqueue
{
	@[probename] = lquantize((timestamp / 1000000) % 10, 0, 10);
}

The output of the example script is two distributions of the millisecond offset within a ten millisecond interval, one for the tick probe and another for enqueue:

# dtrace -s ./tick.d
dtrace: script './tick.d' matched 4 probes
^C
  tick                                              
           value  -------------- Distribution ------------ count    
               6 |                                         0        
               7 |@                                        3        
               8 |@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@   79       
               9 |                                         0        

  enqueue                                           
           value  -------------- Distribution ------------ count    
             < 0 |                                         0        
               0 |@@                                       267      
               1 |@@                                       300      
               2 |@@                                       259      
               3 |@@                                       291      
               4 |@@@                                      360      
               5 |@@                                       305      
               6 |@@                                       295      
               7 |@@@@                                     522      
               8 |@@@@@@@@@@@@                             1315     
               9 |@@@                                      337

The output histogram named tick shows that the clock tick is firing at an 8 millisecond offset. If scheduling were not at all associated with the clock tick, the output for enqueue would be evenly spread across the ten millisecond interval. However, the output shows a spike at the same 8 millisecond offset, indicating that at least some threads in the system are being scheduled on a time basis.