SCHEDULER_README.html revision 1.1.1.3.26.1
1 1.1 tron <!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" 2 1.1.1.3 tron "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> 3 1.1 tron 4 1.1 tron <html> 5 1.1 tron 6 1.1 tron <head> 7 1.1 tron 8 1.1 tron <title>Postfix Queue Scheduler</title> 9 1.1 tron 10 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> 11 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin <link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='postfix-doc.css'> 12 1.1 tron 13 1.1 tron </head> 14 1.1 tron 15 1.1 tron <body> 16 1.1 tron 17 1.1 tron <h1><img src="postfix-logo.jpg" width="203" height="98" ALT="">Postfix 18 1.1 tron Queue Scheduler</h1> 19 1.1 tron 20 1.1 tron <hr> 21 1.1 tron 22 1.1.1.2 tron <h2> Disclaimer </h2> 23 1.1.1.2 tron 24 1.1.1.2 tron <p> Many of the <i>transport</i>-specific configuration parameters 25 1.1.1.2 tron discussed in this document will not show up in "postconf" command 26 1.1.1.2 tron output before Postfix version 2.9. This limitation applies to many 27 1.1.1.2 tron parameters whose name is a combination of a <a href="master.5.html">master.cf</a> service name 28 1.1.1.2 tron such as "relay" and a built-in suffix such as 29 1.1.1.2 tron "_destination_concurrency_limit". </p> 30 1.1.1.2 tron 31 1.1 tron <h2> Overview </h2> 32 1.1 tron 33 1.1 tron <p> The queue manager is by far the most complex part of the Postfix 34 1.1 tron mail system. It schedules delivery of new mail, retries failed 35 1.1 tron deliveries at specific times, and removes mail from the queue after 36 1.1 tron the last delivery attempt. There are two major classes of mechanisms 37 1.1 tron that control the operation of the queue manager. </p> 38 1.1 tron 39 1.1 tron <p> Topics covered by this document: </p> 40 1.1 tron 41 1.1 tron <ul> 42 1.1 tron 43 1.1 tron <li> <a href="#concurrency"> Concurrency scheduling</a>, concerned 44 1.1 tron with the number of concurrent deliveries to a specific destination, 45 1.1 tron including decisions on when to suspend deliveries after persistent 46 1.1 tron failures. 47 1.1 tron 48 1.1 tron <li> <a href="#jobs"> Preemptive scheduling</a>, concerned with 49 1.1 tron the selection of email messages and recipients for a given destination. 50 1.1 tron 51 1.1 tron <li> <a href="#credits"> Credits</a>, something this document would not be 52 1.1 tron complete without. 53 1.1 tron 54 1.1 tron </ul> 55 1.1 tron 56 1.1 tron <!-- 57 1.1 tron 58 1.1 tron <p> Once started, the <a href="qmgr.8.html">qmgr(8)</a> process runs until "postfix reload" 59 1.1 tron or "postfix stop". As a persistent process, the queue manager has 60 1.1 tron to meet strict requirements with respect to code correctness and 61 1.1 tron robustness. Unlike non-persistent daemon processes, the queue manager 62 1.1 tron cannot benefit from Postfix's process rejuvenation mechanism that 63 1.1 tron limit the impact from resource leaks and other coding errors 64 1.1 tron (translation: replacing a process after a short time covers up bugs 65 1.1 tron before they can become a problem). </p> 66 1.1 tron 67 1.1 tron --> 68 1.1 tron 69 1.1 tron <h2> <a name="concurrency"> Concurrency scheduling </a> </h2> 70 1.1 tron 71 1.1 tron <p> The following sections document the Postfix 2.5 concurrency 72 1.1.1.3 tron scheduler, after a discussion of the limitations of the earlier 73 1.1 tron concurrency scheduler. This is followed by results of medium-concurrency 74 1.1 tron experiments, and a discussion of trade-offs between performance and 75 1.1 tron robustness. </p> 76 1.1 tron 77 1.1 tron <p> The material is organized as follows: </p> 78 1.1 tron 79 1.1 tron <ul> 80 1.1 tron 81 1.1 tron <li> <a href="#concurrency_drawbacks"> Drawbacks of the existing 82 1.1 tron concurrency scheduler </a> 83 1.1 tron 84 1.1 tron <li> <a href="#concurrency_summary_2_5"> Summary of the Postfix 2.5 85 1.1 tron concurrency feedback algorithm </a> 86 1.1 tron 87 1.1 tron <li> <a href="#dead_summary_2_5"> Summary of the Postfix 2.5 "dead 88 1.1 tron destination" detection algorithm </a> 89 1.1 tron 90 1.1 tron <li> <a href="#pseudo_code_2_5"> Pseudocode for the Postfix 2.5 91 1.1 tron concurrency scheduler </a> 92 1.1 tron 93 1.1 tron <li> <a href="#concurrency_results"> Results for delivery to 94 1.1 tron concurrency limited servers </a> 95 1.1 tron 96 1.1 tron <li> <a href="#concurrency_discussion"> Discussion of concurrency 97 1.1 tron limited server results </a> 98 1.1 tron 99 1.1 tron <li> <a href="#concurrency_limitations"> Limitations of less-than-1 100 1.1 tron per delivery feedback </a> 101 1.1 tron 102 1.1 tron <li> <a href="#concurrency_config"> Concurrency configuration 103 1.1 tron parameters </a> 104 1.1 tron 105 1.1 tron </ul> 106 1.1 tron 107 1.1 tron <h3> <a name="concurrency_drawbacks"> Drawbacks of the existing 108 1.1 tron concurrency scheduler </a> </h3> 109 1.1 tron 110 1.1 tron <p> From the start, Postfix has used a simple but robust algorithm 111 1.1 tron where the per-destination delivery concurrency is decremented by 1 112 1.1 tron after delivery failed due to connection or handshake failure, and 113 1.1 tron incremented by 1 otherwise. Of course the concurrency is never 114 1.1 tron allowed to exceed the maximum per-destination concurrency limit. 115 1.1 tron And when a destination's concurrency level drops to zero, the 116 1.1 tron destination is declared "dead" and delivery is suspended. </p> 117 1.1 tron 118 1.1 tron <p> Drawbacks of +/-1 concurrency feedback per delivery are: <p> 119 1.1 tron 120 1.1 tron <ul> 121 1.1 tron 122 1.1 tron <li> <p> Overshoot due to exponential delivery concurrency growth 123 1.1 tron with each pseudo-cohort(*). This can be an issue with high-concurrency 124 1.1 tron channels. For example, with the default initial concurrency of 5, 125 1.1 tron concurrency would proceed over time as (5-10-20). </p> 126 1.1 tron 127 1.1 tron <li> <p> Throttling down to zero concurrency after a single 128 1.1 tron pseudo-cohort(*) failure. This was especially an issue with 129 1.1 tron low-concurrency channels where a single failure could be sufficient 130 1.1 tron to mark a destination as "dead", causing the suspension of further 131 1.1 tron deliveries to the affected destination. </p> 132 1.1 tron 133 1.1 tron </ul> 134 1.1 tron 135 1.1 tron <p> (*) A pseudo-cohort is a number of delivery requests equal to 136 1.1 tron a destination's delivery concurrency. </p> 137 1.1 tron 138 1.1 tron <p> The revised concurrency scheduler has a highly modular structure. 139 1.1 tron It uses separate mechanisms for per-destination concurrency control 140 1.1 tron and for "dead destination" detection. The concurrency control in 141 1.1 tron turn is built from two separate mechanisms: it supports less-than-1 142 1.1 tron feedback per delivery to allow for more gradual concurrency 143 1.1 tron adjustments, and it uses feedback hysteresis to suppress concurrency 144 1.1 tron oscillations. And instead of waiting for delivery concurrency to 145 1.1 tron throttle down to zero, a destination is declared "dead" after a 146 1.1 tron configurable number of pseudo-cohorts reports connection or handshake 147 1.1 tron failure. </p> 148 1.1 tron 149 1.1 tron <h3> <a name="concurrency_summary_2_5"> Summary of the Postfix 2.5 150 1.1 tron concurrency feedback algorithm </a> </h3> 151 1.1 tron 152 1.1 tron <p> We want to increment a destination's delivery concurrency when 153 1.1 tron some (not necessarily consecutive) number of deliveries complete 154 1.1 tron without connection or handshake failure. This is implemented with 155 1.1 tron positive feedback g(N) where N is the destination's delivery 156 1.1 tron concurrency. With g(N)=1 feedback per delivery, concurrency increases 157 1.1 tron by 1 after each positive feedback event; this gives us the old 158 1.1 tron scheduler's exponential growth in time. With g(N)=1/N feedback per 159 1.1 tron delivery, concurrency increases by 1 after an entire pseudo-cohort 160 1.1 tron N of positive feedback reports; this gives us linear growth in time. 161 1.1 tron Less-than-1 feedback per delivery and integer truncation naturally 162 1.1 tron give us hysteresis, so that transitions to larger concurrency happen 163 1.1 tron every 1/g(N) positive feedback events. </p> 164 1.1 tron 165 1.1 tron <p> We want to decrement a destination's delivery concurrency when 166 1.1 tron some (not necessarily consecutive) number of deliveries complete 167 1.1 tron after connection or handshake failure. This is implemented with 168 1.1 tron negative feedback f(N) where N is the destination's delivery 169 1.1 tron concurrency. With f(N)=1 feedback per delivery, concurrency decreases 170 1.1 tron by 1 after each negative feedback event; this gives us the old 171 1.1 tron scheduler's behavior where concurrency is throttled down dramatically 172 1.1 tron after a single pseudo-cohort failure. With f(N)=1/N feedback per 173 1.1 tron delivery, concurrency backs off more gently. Again, less-than-1 174 1.1 tron feedback per delivery and integer truncation naturally give us 175 1.1 tron hysteresis, so that transitions to lower concurrency happen every 176 1.1 tron 1/f(N) negative feedback events. </p> 177 1.1 tron 178 1.1 tron <p> However, with negative feedback we introduce a subtle twist. 179 1.1 tron We "reverse" the negative hysteresis cycle so that the transition 180 1.1 tron to lower concurrency happens at the <b>beginning</b> of a sequence 181 1.1 tron of 1/f(N) negative feedback events. Otherwise, a correction for 182 1.1 tron overload would be made too late. This makes the choice of f(N) 183 1.1 tron relatively unimportant, as borne out by measurements later in this 184 1.1 tron document. </p> 185 1.1 tron 186 1.1 tron <p> In summary, the main ingredients for the Postfix 2.5 concurrency 187 1.1 tron feedback algorithm are a) the option of less-than-1 positive feedback 188 1.1 tron per delivery to avoid overwhelming servers, b) the option of 189 1.1 tron less-than-1 negative feedback per delivery to avoid giving up too 190 1.1 tron fast, c) feedback hysteresis to avoid rapid oscillation, and d) a 191 1.1 tron "reverse" hysteresis cycle for negative feedback, so that it can 192 1.1 tron correct for overload quickly. </p> 193 1.1 tron 194 1.1 tron <h3> <a name="dead_summary_2_5"> Summary of the Postfix 2.5 "dead destination" detection algorithm </a> </h3> 195 1.1 tron 196 1.1 tron <p> We want to suspend deliveries to a specific destination after 197 1.1 tron some number of deliveries suffers connection or handshake failure. 198 1.1 tron The old scheduler declares a destination "dead" when negative (-1) 199 1.1 tron feedback throttles the delivery concurrency down to zero. With 200 1.1 tron less-than-1 feedback per delivery, this throttling down would 201 1.1 tron obviously take too long. We therefore have to separate "dead 202 1.1 tron destination" detection from concurrency feedback. This is implemented 203 1.1 tron by introducing the concept of pseudo-cohort failure. The Postfix 204 1.1 tron 2.5 concurrency scheduler declares a destination "dead" after a 205 1.1 tron configurable number of pseudo-cohorts suffers from connection or 206 1.1 tron handshake failures. The old scheduler corresponds to the special 207 1.1 tron case where the pseudo-cohort failure limit is equal to 1. </p> 208 1.1 tron 209 1.1 tron <h3> <a name="pseudo_code_2_5"> Pseudocode for the Postfix 2.5 concurrency scheduler </a> </h3> 210 1.1 tron 211 1.1 tron <p> The pseudo code shows how the ideas behind new concurrency 212 1.1 tron scheduler are implemented as of November 2007. The actual code can 213 1.1 tron be found in the module qmgr/qmgr_queue.c. </p> 214 1.1 tron 215 1.1 tron <pre> 216 1.1 tron Types: 217 1.1 tron Each destination has one set of the following variables 218 1.1 tron int concurrency 219 1.1 tron double success 220 1.1 tron double failure 221 1.1 tron double fail_cohorts 222 1.1 tron 223 1.1 tron Feedback functions: 224 1.1 tron N is concurrency; x, y are arbitrary numbers in [0..1] inclusive 225 1.1 tron positive feedback: g(N) = x/N | x/sqrt(N) | x 226 1.1 tron negative feedback: f(N) = y/N | y/sqrt(N) | y 227 1.1 tron 228 1.1 tron Initialization: 229 1.1 tron concurrency = initial_concurrency 230 1.1 tron success = 0 231 1.1 tron failure = 0 232 1.1 tron fail_cohorts = 0 233 1.1 tron 234 1.1 tron After success: 235 1.1 tron fail_cohorts = 0 236 1.1 tron Be prepared for feedback > hysteresis, or rounding error 237 1.1 tron success += g(concurrency) 238 1.1 tron while (success >= 1) Hysteresis 1 239 1.1 tron concurrency += 1 Hysteresis 1 240 1.1 tron failure = 0 241 1.1 tron success -= 1 Hysteresis 1 242 1.1 tron Be prepared for overshoot 243 1.1 tron if (concurrency > concurrency limit) 244 1.1 tron concurrency = concurrency limit 245 1.1 tron 246 1.1 tron Safety: 247 1.1 tron Don't apply positive feedback unless 248 1.1 tron concurrency < busy_refcount + init_dest_concurrency 249 1.1 tron otherwise negative feedback effect could be delayed 250 1.1 tron 251 1.1 tron After failure: 252 1.1 tron if (concurrency > 0) 253 1.1 tron fail_cohorts += 1.0 / concurrency 254 1.1 tron if (fail_cohorts > cohort_failure_limit) 255 1.1 tron concurrency = 0 256 1.1 tron if (concurrency > 0) 257 1.1 tron Be prepared for feedback > hysteresis, rounding errors 258 1.1 tron failure -= f(concurrency) 259 1.1 tron while (failure < 0) 260 1.1 tron concurrency -= 1 Hysteresis 1 261 1.1 tron failure += 1 Hysteresis 1 262 1.1 tron success = 0 263 1.1 tron Be prepared for overshoot 264 1.1 tron if (concurrency < 1) 265 1.1 tron concurrency = 1 266 1.1 tron </pre> 267 1.1 tron 268 1.1 tron <h3> <a name="concurrency_results"> Results for delivery to concurrency-limited servers </a> </h3> 269 1.1 tron 270 1.1 tron <p> Discussions about the concurrency scheduler redesign started 271 1.1 tron early 2004, when the primary goal was to find alternatives that did 272 1.1 tron not exhibit exponential growth or rapid concurrency throttling. No 273 1.1 tron code was implemented until late 2007, when the primary concern had 274 1.1 tron shifted towards better handling of server concurrency limits. For 275 1.1 tron this reason we measure how well the new scheduler does this 276 1.1 tron job. The table below compares mail delivery performance of the old 277 1.1 tron +/-1 feedback per delivery with several less-than-1 feedback 278 1.1 tron functions, for different limited-concurrency server scenarios. 279 1.1 tron Measurements were done with a FreeBSD 6.2 client and with FreeBSD 280 1.1 tron 6.2 and various Linux servers. </p> 281 1.1 tron 282 1.1 tron <p> Server configuration: </p> 283 1.1 tron 284 1.1 tron <ul> <li> The mail flow was slowed down with 1 second latency per 285 1.1 tron recipient ("<a href="postconf.5.html#smtpd_client_restrictions">smtpd_client_restrictions</a> = sleep 1"). The purpose was 286 1.1 tron to make results less dependent on hardware details, by avoiding 287 1.1 tron slow-downs by queue file I/O, logging I/O, and network I/O. 288 1.1 tron 289 1.1 tron <li> Concurrency was limited by the server process limit 290 1.1 tron ("<a href="postconf.5.html#default_process_limit">default_process_limit</a> = 5" and "<a href="postconf.5.html#smtpd_client_event_limit_exceptions">smtpd_client_event_limit_exceptions</a> 291 1.1.1.2 tron = <a href="DATABASE_README.html#types">static</a>:all"). Postfix was stopped and started after changing the 292 1.1 tron process limit, because the same number is also used as the backlog 293 1.1 tron argument to the listen(2) system call, and "postfix reload" does 294 1.1 tron not re-issue this call. 295 1.1 tron 296 1.1.1.2 tron <li> Mail was discarded with "<a href="postconf.5.html#local_recipient_maps">local_recipient_maps</a> = <a href="DATABASE_README.html#types">static</a>:all" and 297 1.1 tron "<a href="postconf.5.html#local_transport">local_transport</a> = discard". The discard action in access maps or 298 1.1 tron header/body checks 299 1.1 tron could not be used as it fails to update the <a href="postconf.5.html#in_flow_delay">in_flow_delay</a> counters. 300 1.1 tron 301 1.1 tron </ul> 302 1.1 tron 303 1.1 tron <p> Client configuration: </p> 304 1.1 tron 305 1.1 tron <ul> 306 1.1 tron 307 1.1 tron <li> Queue file overhead was minimized by sending one message to a 308 1.1 tron virtual alias that expanded into 2000 different remote recipients. 309 1.1 tron All recipients were accounted for according to the maillog file. 310 1.1 tron The <a href="postconf.5.html#virtual_alias_expansion_limit">virtual_alias_expansion_limit</a> setting was increased to avoid 311 1.1 tron complaints from the <a href="cleanup.8.html">cleanup(8)</a> server. 312 1.1 tron 313 1.1 tron <li> The number of deliveries was maximized with 314 1.1 tron "<a href="postconf.5.html#smtp_destination_recipient_limit">smtp_destination_recipient_limit</a> = 2". A smaller limit would cause 315 1.1 tron Postfix to schedule the concurrency per recipient instead of domain, 316 1.1 tron which is not what we want. 317 1.1 tron 318 1.1 tron <li> Maximum concurrency was limited with 319 1.1 tron "<a href="postconf.5.html#smtp_destination_concurrency_limit">smtp_destination_concurrency_limit</a> = 20", and 320 1.1 tron <a href="postconf.5.html#initial_destination_concurrency">initial_destination_concurrency</a> was set to the same value. 321 1.1 tron 322 1.1 tron <li> The positive and negative concurrency feedback hysteresis was 323 1.1 tron 1. Concurrency was incremented by 1 at the END of 1/feedback steps 324 1.1 tron of positive feedback, and was decremented by 1 at the START of 325 1.1 tron 1/feedback steps of negative feedback. 326 1.1 tron 327 1.1 tron <li> The SMTP client used the default 30s SMTP connect timeout and 328 1.1 tron 300s SMTP greeting timeout. 329 1.1 tron 330 1.1 tron </ul> 331 1.1 tron 332 1.1 tron <h4> Impact of the 30s SMTP connect timeout </h4> 333 1.1 tron 334 1.1 tron <p> The first results are for a FreeBSD 6.2 server, where our 335 1.1 tron artificially low listen(2) backlog results in a very short kernel 336 1.1 tron queue for established connections. The table shows that all deferred 337 1.1 tron deliveries failed due to a 30s connection timeout, and none failed 338 1.1 tron due to a server greeting timeout. This measurement simulates what 339 1.1 tron happens when the server's connection queue is completely full under 340 1.1 tron load, and the TCP engine drops new connections. </p> 341 1.1 tron 342 1.1 tron <blockquote> 343 1.1 tron 344 1.1 tron <table> 345 1.1 tron 346 1.1 tron <tr> <th>client<br> limit</th> <th>server<br> limit</th> <th>feedback<br> 347 1.1 tron style</th> <th>connection<br> caching</th> <th>percentage<br> 348 1.1 tron deferred</th> <th colspan="2">client concurrency<br> average/stddev</th> 349 1.1 tron <th colspan=2>timed-out in<br> connect/greeting </th> </tr> 350 1.1 tron 351 1.1 tron <tr> <td align="center" colspan="9"> <hr> </td> </tr> 352 1.1 tron 353 1.1 tron <tr><td align="center">20</td> <td align="center">5</td> <td 354 1.1 tron align="center">1/N</td> <td align="center">no</td> <td 355 1.1 tron align="center">9.9</td> <td align="center">19.4</td> <td 356 1.1 tron align="center">0.49</td> <td align="center">198</td> <td 357 1.1 tron align="center">-</td> </tr> 358 1.1 tron 359 1.1 tron <tr><td align="center">20</td> <td align="center">5</td> <td 360 1.1 tron align="center">1/N</td> <td align="center">yes</td> <td 361 1.1 tron align="center">10.3</td> <td align="center">19.4</td> <td 362 1.1 tron align="center">0.49</td> <td align="center">206</td> <td 363 1.1 tron align="center">-</td> </tr> 364 1.1 tron 365 1.1 tron <tr><td align="center">20</td> <td align="center">5</td> <td 366 1.1 tron align="center">1/sqrt(N)</td> <td align="center">no</td> 367 1.1 tron <td align="center">10.4</td> <td align="center">19.6</td> <td 368 1.1 tron align="center">0.59</td> <td align="center">208</td> <td 369 1.1 tron align="center">-</td> </tr> 370 1.1 tron 371 1.1 tron <tr><td align="center">20</td> <td align="center">5</td> <td 372 1.1 tron align="center">1/sqrt(N)</td> <td align="center">yes</td> 373 1.1 tron <td align="center">10.6</td> <td align="center">19.6</td> <td 374 1.1 tron align="center">0.61</td> <td align="center">212</td> <td 375 1.1 tron align="center">-</td> </tr> 376 1.1 tron 377 1.1 tron <tr><td align="center">20</td> <td align="center">5</td> <td 378 1.1 tron align="center">1</td> <td align="center">no</td> <td 379 1.1 tron align="center">10.1</td> <td align="center">19.5</td> <td 380 1.1 tron align="center">1.29</td> <td align="center">202</td> <td 381 1.1 tron align="center">-</td> </tr> 382 1.1 tron 383 1.1 tron <tr><td align="center">20</td> <td align="center">5</td> <td 384 1.1 tron align="center">1</td> <td align="center">yes</td> <td 385 1.1 tron align="center">10.8</td> <td align="center">19.3</td> <td 386 1.1 tron align="center">1.57</td> <td align="center">216</td> <td 387 1.1 tron align="center">-</td> </tr> 388 1.1 tron 389 1.1 tron <tr> <td align="center" colspan="9"> <hr> </td> </tr> 390 1.1 tron 391 1.1 tron </table> 392 1.1 tron 393 1.1 tron <p> A busy server with a completely full connection queue. N is 394 1.1 tron the client delivery concurrency. Failed deliveries time out after 395 1.1 tron 30s without completing the TCP handshake. See text for a discussion 396 1.1 tron of results. </p> 397 1.1 tron 398 1.1 tron </blockquote> 399 1.1 tron 400 1.1 tron <h4> Impact of the 300s SMTP greeting timeout </h4> 401 1.1 tron 402 1.1 tron <p> The next table shows results for a Fedora Core 8 server (results 403 1.1 tron for RedHat 7.3 are identical). In this case, the artificially small 404 1.1 tron listen(2) backlog argument does not impact our measurement. The 405 1.1 tron table shows that practically all deferred deliveries fail after the 406 1.1 tron 300s SMTP greeting timeout. As these timeouts were 10x longer than 407 1.1 tron with the first measurement, we increased the recipient count (and 408 1.1 tron thus the running time) by a factor of 10 to keep the results 409 1.1 tron comparable. The deferred mail percentages are a factor 10 lower 410 1.1 tron than with the first measurement, because the 1s per-recipient delay 411 1.1 tron was 1/300th of the greeting timeout instead of 1/30th of the 412 1.1 tron connection timeout. </p> 413 1.1 tron 414 1.1 tron <blockquote> 415 1.1 tron 416 1.1 tron <table> 417 1.1 tron 418 1.1 tron <tr> <th>client<br> limit</th> <th>server<br> limit</th> <th>feedback<br> 419 1.1 tron style</th> <th>connection<br> caching</th> <th>percentage<br> 420 1.1 tron deferred</th> <th colspan="2">client concurrency<br> average/stddev</th> 421 1.1 tron <th colspan=2>timed-out in<br> connect/greeting </th> </tr> 422 1.1 tron 423 1.1 tron <tr> <td align="center" colspan="9"> <hr> </td> </tr> 424 1.1 tron 425 1.1 tron <tr> <td align="center">20</td> <td align="center">5</td> <td 426 1.1 tron align="center">1/N</td> <td align="center">no</td> <td 427 1.1 tron align="center">1.16</td> <td align="center">19.8</td> <td 428 1.1 tron align="center">0.37</td> <td align="center">-</td> <td 429 1.1 tron align="center">230</td> </tr> 430 1.1 tron 431 1.1 tron <tr> <td align="center">20</td> <td align="center">5</td> <td 432 1.1 tron align="center">1/N</td> <td align="center">yes</td> <td 433 1.1 tron align="center">1.36</td> <td align="center">19.8</td> <td 434 1.1 tron align="center">0.36</td> <td align="center">-</td> <td 435 1.1 tron align="center">272</td> </tr> 436 1.1 tron 437 1.1 tron <tr> <td align="center">20</td> <td align="center">5</td> <td 438 1.1 tron align="center">1/sqrt(N)</td> <td align="center">no</td> 439 1.1 tron <td align="center">1.21</td> <td align="center">19.9</td> <td 440 1.1 tron align="center">0.23</td> <td align="center">4</td> <td 441 1.1 tron align="center">238</td> </tr> 442 1.1 tron 443 1.1 tron <tr> <td align="center">20</td> <td align="center">5</td> <td 444 1.1 tron align="center">1/sqrt(N)</td> <td align="center">yes</td> 445 1.1 tron <td align="center">1.36</td> <td align="center">20.0</td> <td 446 1.1 tron align="center">0.23</td> <td align="center">-</td> <td 447 1.1 tron align="center">272</td> </tr> 448 1.1 tron 449 1.1 tron <tr> <td align="center">20</td> <td align="center">5</td> <td 450 1.1 tron align="center">1</td> <td align="center">no</td> <td 451 1.1 tron align="center">1.18</td> <td align="center">20.0</td> <td 452 1.1 tron align="center">0.16</td> <td align="center">-</td> <td 453 1.1 tron align="center">236</td> </tr> 454 1.1 tron 455 1.1 tron <tr> <td align="center">20</td> <td align="center">5</td> <td 456 1.1 tron align="center">1</td> <td align="center">yes</td> <td 457 1.1 tron align="center">1.39</td> <td align="center">20.0</td> <td 458 1.1 tron align="center">0.16</td> <td align="center">-</td> <td 459 1.1 tron align="center">278</td> </tr> 460 1.1 tron 461 1.1 tron <tr> <td align="center" colspan="9"> <hr> </td> </tr> 462 1.1 tron 463 1.1 tron </table> 464 1.1 tron 465 1.1 tron <p> A busy server with a non-full connection queue. N is the client 466 1.1 tron delivery concurrency. Failed deliveries complete at the TCP level, 467 1.1 tron but time out after 300s while waiting for the SMTP greeting. See 468 1.1 tron text for a discussion of results. </p> 469 1.1 tron 470 1.1 tron </blockquote> 471 1.1 tron 472 1.1 tron <h4> Impact of active server concurrency limiter </h4> 473 1.1 tron 474 1.1 tron <p> The final concurrency-limited result shows what happens when 475 1.1 tron SMTP connections don't time out, but are rejected immediately with 476 1.1 tron the Postfix server's <a href="postconf.5.html#smtpd_client_connection_count_limit">smtpd_client_connection_count_limit</a> feature 477 1.1 tron (the server replies with a 421 status and disconnects immediately). 478 1.1 tron Similar results can be expected with concurrency limiting features 479 1.1 tron built into other MTAs or firewalls. For this measurement we specified 480 1.1 tron a server concurrency limit and a client initial destination concurrency 481 1.1 tron of 5, and a server process limit of 10; all other conditions were 482 1.1 tron the same as with the first measurement. The same result would be 483 1.1 tron obtained with a FreeBSD or Linux server, because the "pushing back" 484 1.1 tron is done entirely by the receiving side. </p> 485 1.1 tron 486 1.1 tron <blockquote> 487 1.1 tron 488 1.1 tron <table> 489 1.1 tron 490 1.1 tron <tr> <th>client<br> limit</th> <th>server<br> limit</th> <th>feedback<br> 491 1.1 tron style</th> <th>connection<br> caching</th> <th>percentage<br> 492 1.1 tron deferred</th> <th colspan="2">client concurrency<br> average/stddev</th> 493 1.1 tron <th>theoretical<br>defer rate</th> </tr> 494 1.1 tron 495 1.1 tron <tr> <td align="center" colspan="9"> <hr> </td> </tr> 496 1.1 tron 497 1.1 tron <tr> <td align="center">20</td> <td align="center">5</td> <td 498 1.1 tron align="center">1/N</td> <td align="center">no</td> <td 499 1.1 tron align="center">16.5</td> <td align="center">5.17</td> <td 500 1.1 tron align="center">0.38</td> <td align="center">1/6</td> </tr> 501 1.1 tron 502 1.1 tron <tr> <td align="center">20</td> <td align="center">5</td> <td 503 1.1 tron align="center">1/N</td> <td align="center">yes</td> <td 504 1.1 tron align="center">16.5</td> <td align="center">5.17</td> <td 505 1.1 tron align="center">0.38</td> <td align="center">1/6</td> </tr> 506 1.1 tron 507 1.1 tron <tr> <td align="center">20</td> <td align="center">5</td> <td 508 1.1 tron align="center">1/sqrt(N)</td> <td align="center">no</td> 509 1.1 tron <td align="center">24.5</td> <td align="center">5.28</td> <td 510 1.1 tron align="center">0.45</td> <td align="center">1/4</td> </tr> 511 1.1 tron 512 1.1 tron <tr> <td align="center">20</td> <td align="center">5</td> <td 513 1.1 tron align="center">1/sqrt(N)</td> <td align="center">yes</td> 514 1.1 tron <td align="center">24.3</td> <td align="center">5.28</td> <td 515 1.1 tron align="center">0.46</td> <td align="center">1/4</td> </tr> 516 1.1 tron 517 1.1 tron <tr> <td align="center">20</td> <td align="center">5</td> <td 518 1.1 tron align="center">1</td> <td align="center">no</td> <td 519 1.1 tron align="center">49.7</td> <td align="center">5.63</td> <td 520 1.1 tron align="center">0.67</td> <td align="center">1/2</td> </tr> 521 1.1 tron 522 1.1 tron <tr> <td align="center">20</td> <td align="center">5</td> <td 523 1.1 tron align="center">1</td> <td align="center">yes</td> <td 524 1.1 tron align="center">49.7</td> <td align="center">5.68</td> <td 525 1.1 tron align="center">0.70</td> <td align="center">1/2</td> </tr> 526 1.1 tron 527 1.1 tron <tr> <td align="center" colspan="9"> <hr> </td> </tr> 528 1.1 tron 529 1.1 tron </table> 530 1.1 tron 531 1.1 tron <p> A server with active per-client concurrency limiter that replies 532 1.1 tron with 421 and disconnects. N is the client delivery concurrency. 533 1.1 tron The theoretical defer rate is 1/(1+roundup(1/feedback)). This is 534 1.1 tron always 1/2 with the fixed +/-1 feedback per delivery; with the 535 1.1 tron concurrency-dependent feedback variants, the defer rate decreases 536 1.1 tron with increasing concurrency. See text for a discussion of results. 537 1.1 tron </p> 538 1.1 tron 539 1.1 tron </blockquote> 540 1.1 tron 541 1.1 tron <h3> <a name="concurrency_discussion"> Discussion of concurrency-limited server results </a> </h3> 542 1.1 tron 543 1.1 tron <p> All results in the previous sections are based on the first 544 1.1 tron delivery runs only; they do not include any second etc. delivery 545 1.1 tron attempts. It's also worth noting that the measurements look at 546 1.1 tron steady-state behavior only. They don't show what happens when the 547 1.1 tron client starts sending at a much higher or lower concurrency. 548 1.1 tron </p> 549 1.1 tron 550 1.1 tron <p> The first two examples show that the effect of feedback 551 1.1 tron is negligible when concurrency is limited due to congestion. This 552 1.1 tron is because the initial concurrency is already at the client's 553 1.1 tron concurrency maximum, and because there is 10-100 times more positive 554 1.1 tron than negative feedback. Under these conditions, it is no surprise 555 1.1 tron that the contribution from SMTP connection caching is also negligible. 556 1.1 tron </p> 557 1.1 tron 558 1.1 tron <p> In the last example, the old +/-1 feedback per delivery will 559 1.1 tron defer 50% of the mail when confronted with an active (anvil-style) 560 1.1 tron server concurrency limit, where the server hangs up immediately 561 1.1 tron with a 421 status (a TCP-level RST would have the same result). 562 1.1 tron Less aggressive feedback mechanisms fare better than more aggressive 563 1.1 tron ones. Concurrency-dependent feedback fares even better at higher 564 1.1 tron concurrencies than shown here, but has limitations as discussed in 565 1.1 tron the next section. </p> 566 1.1 tron 567 1.1 tron <h3> <a name="concurrency_limitations"> Limitations of less-than-1 per delivery feedback </a> </h3> 568 1.1 tron 569 1.1 tron <p> Less-than-1 feedback is of interest primarily when sending large 570 1.1 tron amounts of mail to destinations with active concurrency limiters 571 1.1 tron (servers that reply with 421, or firewalls that send RST). When 572 1.1 tron sending small amounts of mail per destination, less-than-1 per-delivery 573 1.1 tron feedback won't have a noticeable effect on the per-destination 574 1.1 tron concurrency, because the number of deliveries to the same destination 575 1.1 tron is too small. You might just as well use zero per-delivery feedback 576 1.1 tron and stay with the initial per-destination concurrency. And when 577 1.1 tron mail deliveries fail due to congestion instead of active concurrency 578 1.1 tron limiters, the measurements above show that per-delivery feedback 579 1.1 tron has no effect. With large amounts of mail you might just as well 580 1.1 tron use zero per-delivery feedback and start with the maximal per-destination 581 1.1 tron concurrency. </p> 582 1.1 tron 583 1.1 tron <p> The scheduler with less-than-1 concurrency 584 1.1 tron feedback per delivery solves a problem with servers that have active 585 1.1 tron concurrency limiters. This works only because feedback is handled 586 1.1 tron in a peculiar manner: positive feedback will increment the concurrency 587 1.1 tron by 1 at the <b>end</b> of a sequence of events of length 1/feedback, 588 1.1 tron while negative feedback will decrement concurrency by 1 at the 589 1.1 tron <b>beginning</b> of such a sequence. This is how Postfix adjusts 590 1.1 tron quickly for overshoot without causing lots of mail to be deferred. 591 1.1 tron Without this difference in feedback treatment, less-than-1 feedback 592 1.1 tron per delivery would defer 50% of the mail, and would be no better 593 1.1 tron in this respect than the old +/-1 feedback per delivery. </p> 594 1.1 tron 595 1.1 tron <p> Unfortunately, the same feature that corrects quickly for 596 1.1 tron concurrency overshoot also makes the scheduler more sensitive for 597 1.1 tron noisy negative feedback. The reason is that one lonely negative 598 1.1 tron feedback event has the same effect as a complete sequence of length 599 1.1 tron 1/feedback: in both cases delivery concurrency is dropped by 1 600 1.1 tron immediately. As a worst-case scenario, consider multiple servers 601 1.1 tron behind a load balancer on a single IP address, and no backup MX 602 1.1 tron address. When 1 out of K servers fails to complete the SMTP handshake 603 1.1 tron or drops the connection, a scheduler with 1/N (N = concurrency) 604 1.1 tron feedback stops increasing its concurrency once it reaches a concurrency 605 1.1 tron level of about K, even though the good servers behind the load 606 1.1 tron balancer are perfectly capable of handling more traffic. </p> 607 1.1 tron 608 1.1 tron <p> This noise problem gets worse as the amount of positive feedback 609 1.1 tron per delivery gets smaller. A compromise is to use fixed less-than-1 610 1.1 tron positive feedback values instead of concurrency-dependent positive 611 1.1 tron feedback. For example, to tolerate 1 of 4 bad servers in the above 612 1.1 tron load balancer scenario, use positive feedback of 1/4 per "good" 613 1.1 tron delivery (no connect or handshake error), and use an equal or smaller 614 1.1 tron amount of negative feedback per "bad" delivery. The downside of 615 1.1 tron using concurrency-independent feedback is that some of the old +/-1 616 1.1 tron feedback problems will return at large concurrencies. Sites that 617 1.1 tron must deliver mail at non-trivial per-destination concurrencies will 618 1.1 tron require special configuration. </p> 619 1.1 tron 620 1.1 tron <h3> <a name="concurrency_config"> Concurrency configuration parameters </a> </h3> 621 1.1 tron 622 1.1 tron <p> The Postfix 2.5 concurrency scheduler is controlled with the 623 1.1 tron following configuration parameters, where "<i>transport</i>_foo" 624 1.1 tron provides a transport-specific parameter override. All parameter 625 1.1 tron default settings are compatible with earlier Postfix versions. </p> 626 1.1 tron 627 1.1 tron <blockquote> 628 1.1 tron 629 1.1 tron <table border="0"> 630 1.1 tron 631 1.1 tron <tr> <th> Parameter name </th> <th> Postfix version </th> <th> 632 1.1 tron Description </th> </tr> 633 1.1 tron 634 1.1 tron <tr> <td colspan="3"> <hr> </td> </tr> 635 1.1 tron 636 1.1 tron <tr> <td> <a href="postconf.5.html#initial_destination_concurrency">initial_destination_concurrency</a><br> 637 1.1 tron <a href="postconf.5.html#transport_initial_destination_concurrency"><i>transport</i>_initial_destination_concurrency</a> </td> <td 638 1.1 tron align="center"> all<br> 2.5 </td> <td> Initial per-destination 639 1.1 tron delivery concurrency </td> </tr> 640 1.1 tron 641 1.1 tron <tr> <td> <a href="postconf.5.html#default_destination_concurrency_limit">default_destination_concurrency_limit</a><br> 642 1.1 tron <a href="postconf.5.html#transport_destination_concurrency_limit"><i>transport</i>_destination_concurrency_limit</a> </td> <td align="center"> 643 1.1 tron all<br> all </td> <td> Maximum per-destination delivery concurrency 644 1.1 tron </td> </tr> 645 1.1 tron 646 1.1 tron <tr> <td> <a href="postconf.5.html#default_destination_concurrency_positive_feedback">default_destination_concurrency_positive_feedback</a><br> 647 1.1 tron <a href="postconf.5.html#transport_destination_concurrency_positive_feedback"><i>transport</i>_destination_concurrency_positive_feedback</a> </td> 648 1.1 tron <td align="center"> 2.5<br> 2.5 </td> <td> Per-destination positive 649 1.1 tron feedback amount, per delivery that does not fail with connection 650 1.1 tron or handshake failure </td> </tr> 651 1.1 tron 652 1.1 tron <tr> <td> <a href="postconf.5.html#default_destination_concurrency_negative_feedback">default_destination_concurrency_negative_feedback</a><br> 653 1.1 tron <a href="postconf.5.html#transport_destination_concurrency_negative_feedback"><i>transport</i>_destination_concurrency_negative_feedback</a> </td> 654 1.1 tron <td align="center"> 2.5<br> 2.5 </td> <td> Per-destination negative 655 1.1 tron feedback amount, per delivery that fails with connection or handshake 656 1.1 tron failure </td> </tr> 657 1.1 tron 658 1.1 tron <tr> <td> <a href="postconf.5.html#default_destination_concurrency_failed_cohort_limit">default_destination_concurrency_failed_cohort_limit</a><br> 659 1.1 tron <a href="postconf.5.html#transport_destination_concurrency_failed_cohort_limit"><i>transport</i>_destination_concurrency_failed_cohort_limit</a> </td> 660 1.1 tron <td align="center"> 2.5<br> 2.5 </td> <td> Number of failed 661 1.1 tron pseudo-cohorts after which a destination is declared "dead" and 662 1.1 tron delivery is suspended </td> </tr> 663 1.1 tron 664 1.1 tron <tr> <td> <a href="postconf.5.html#destination_concurrency_feedback_debug">destination_concurrency_feedback_debug</a></td> <td align="center"> 665 1.1 tron 2.5 </td> <td> Enable verbose logging of concurrency scheduler 666 1.1 tron activity </td> </tr> 667 1.1 tron 668 1.1 tron <tr> <td colspan="3"> <hr> </td> </tr> 669 1.1 tron 670 1.1 tron </table> 671 1.1 tron 672 1.1 tron </blockquote> 673 1.1 tron 674 1.1 tron <h2> <a name="jobs"> Preemptive scheduling </a> </h2> 675 1.1 tron 676 1.1 tron <p> 677 1.1 tron 678 1.1 tron The following sections describe the new queue manager and its 679 1.1 tron preemptive scheduler algorithm. Note that the document was originally 680 1.1 tron written to describe the changes between the new queue manager (in 681 1.1 tron this text referred to as <tt>nqmgr</tt>, the name it was known by 682 1.1 tron before it became the default queue manager) and the old queue manager 683 1.1 tron (referred to as <tt>oqmgr</tt>). This is why it refers to <tt>oqmgr</tt> 684 1.1 tron every so often. 685 1.1 tron 686 1.1 tron </p> 687 1.1 tron 688 1.1 tron <p> 689 1.1 tron 690 1.1 tron This document is divided into sections as follows: 691 1.1 tron 692 1.1 tron </p> 693 1.1 tron 694 1.1 tron <ul> 695 1.1 tron 696 1.1 tron <li> <a href="#<tt>nqmgr</tt>_structures"> The structures used by 697 1.1 tron nqmgr </a> 698 1.1 tron 699 1.1 tron <li> <a href="#<tt>nqmgr</tt>_pickup"> What happens when nqmgr picks 700 1.1 tron up the message </a> - how it is assigned to transports, jobs, peers, 701 1.1 tron entries 702 1.1 tron 703 1.1 tron <li> <a href="#<tt>nqmgr</tt>_selection"> How the entry selection 704 1.1 tron works </a> 705 1.1 tron 706 1.1 tron <li> <a href="#<tt>nqmgr</tt>_preemption"> How the preemption 707 1.1 tron works </a> - what messages may be preempted and how and what messages 708 1.1 tron are chosen to preempt them 709 1.1 tron 710 1.1 tron <li> <a href="#<tt>nqmgr</tt>_concurrency"> How destination concurrency 711 1.1 tron limits affect the scheduling algorithm </a> 712 1.1 tron 713 1.1 tron <li> <a href="#<tt>nqmgr</tt>_memory"> Dealing with memory resource 714 1.1 tron limits </a> 715 1.1 tron 716 1.1 tron </ul> 717 1.1 tron 718 1.1 tron <h3> <a name="<tt>nqmgr</tt>_structures"> The structures used by 719 1.1 tron nqmgr </a> </h3> 720 1.1 tron 721 1.1 tron <p> 722 1.1 tron 723 1.1 tron Let's start by recapitulating the structures and terms used when 724 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin referring to the queue manager and how it operates. Many of these are 725 1.1 tron partially described elsewhere, but it is nice to have a coherent 726 1.1 tron overview in one place: 727 1.1 tron 728 1.1 tron </p> 729 1.1 tron 730 1.1 tron <ul> 731 1.1 tron 732 1.1 tron <li> <p> Each message structure represents one mail message which 733 1.1 tron Postfix is to deliver. The message recipients specify to what 734 1.1 tron destinations is the message to be delivered and what transports are 735 1.1 tron going to be used for the delivery. </p> 736 1.1 tron 737 1.1 tron <li> <p> Each recipient entry groups a batch of recipients of one 738 1.1.1.3 tron message which are all going to be delivered to the same destination 739 1.1.1.3 tron (and over the same transport). 740 1.1 tron </p> 741 1.1 tron 742 1.1 tron <li> <p> Each transport structure groups everything what is going 743 1.1 tron to be delivered by delivery agents dedicated for that transport. 744 1.1 tron Each transport maintains a set of queues (describing the destinations 745 1.1 tron it shall talk to) and jobs (referencing the messages it shall 746 1.1 tron deliver). </p> 747 1.1 tron 748 1.1 tron <li> <p> Each transport queue (not to be confused with the on-disk 749 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin "<a href="QSHAPE_README.html#active_queue">active" queue</a> or "<a href="QSHAPE_README.html#incoming_queue">incoming" queue</a>) groups everything what is going be 750 1.1 tron delivered to given destination (aka nexthop) by its transport. Each 751 1.1 tron queue belongs to one transport, so each destination may be referred 752 1.1 tron to by several queues, one for each transport. Each queue maintains 753 1.1 tron a list of all recipient entries (batches of message recipients) 754 1.1 tron which shall be delivered to given destination (the todo list), and 755 1.1 tron a list of recipient entries already being delivered by the delivery 756 1.1 tron agents (the busy list). </p> 757 1.1 tron 758 1.1 tron <li> <p> Each queue corresponds to multiple peer structures. Each 759 1.1 tron peer structure is like the queue structure, belonging to one transport 760 1.1 tron and referencing one destination. The difference is that it lists 761 1.1 tron only the recipient entries which all originate from the same message, 762 1.1 tron unlike the queue structure, whose entries may originate from various 763 1.1 tron messages. For messages with few recipients, there is usually just 764 1.1 tron one recipient entry for each destination, resulting in one recipient 765 1.1 tron entry per peer. But for large mailing list messages the recipients 766 1.1 tron may need to be split to multiple recipient entries, in which case 767 1.1 tron the peer structure may list many entries for single destination. 768 1.1 tron </p> 769 1.1 tron 770 1.1 tron <li> <p> Each transport job groups everything it takes to deliver 771 1.1 tron one message via its transport. Each job represents one message 772 1.1 tron within the context of the transport. The job belongs to one transport 773 1.1 tron and message, so each message may have multiple jobs, one for each 774 1.1 tron transport. The job groups all the peer structures, which describe 775 1.1 tron the destinations the job's message has to be delivered to. </p> 776 1.1 tron 777 1.1 tron </ul> 778 1.1 tron 779 1.1 tron <p> 780 1.1 tron 781 1.1 tron The first four structures are common to both <tt>nqmgr</tt> and 782 1.1 tron <tt>oqmgr</tt>, the latter two were introduced by <tt>nqmgr</tt>. 783 1.1 tron 784 1.1 tron </p> 785 1.1 tron 786 1.1 tron <p> 787 1.1 tron 788 1.1 tron These terms are used extensively in the text below, feel free to 789 1.1 tron look up the description above anytime you'll feel you have lost a 790 1.1 tron sense what is what. 791 1.1 tron 792 1.1 tron </p> 793 1.1 tron 794 1.1 tron <h3> <a name="<tt>nqmgr</tt>_pickup"> What happens when nqmgr picks 795 1.1 tron up the message </a> </h3> 796 1.1 tron 797 1.1 tron <p> 798 1.1 tron 799 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin Whenever <tt>nqmgr</tt> moves a queue file into the "<a href="QSHAPE_README.html#active_queue">active" queue</a>, 800 1.1 tron the following happens: It reads all necessary information from the 801 1.1 tron queue file as <tt>oqmgr</tt> does, and also reads as many recipients 802 1.1 tron as possible - more on that later, for now let's just pretend it 803 1.1 tron always reads all recipients. 804 1.1 tron 805 1.1 tron </p> 806 1.1 tron 807 1.1 tron <p> 808 1.1 tron 809 1.1 tron Then it resolves the recipients as <tt>oqmgr</tt> does, which 810 1.1 tron means obtaining (address, nexthop, transport) triple for each 811 1.1 tron recipient. For each triple, it finds the transport; if it does not 812 1.1 tron exist yet, it instantiates it (unless it's dead). Within the 813 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin transport, it finds the destination queue for the given nexthop; if it 814 1.1 tron does not exist yet, it instantiates it (unless it's dead). The 815 1.1 tron triple is then bound to given destination queue. This happens in 816 1.1 tron qmgr_resolve() and is basically the same as in <tt>oqmgr</tt>. 817 1.1 tron 818 1.1 tron </p> 819 1.1 tron 820 1.1 tron <p> 821 1.1 tron 822 1.1 tron Then for each triple which was bound to some queue (and thus 823 1.1 tron transport), the program finds the job which represents the message 824 1.1 tron within that transport's context; if it does not exist yet, it 825 1.1 tron instantiates it. Within the job, it finds the peer which represents 826 1.1 tron the bound destination queue within this jobs context; if it does 827 1.1 tron not exist yet, it instantiates it. Finally, it stores the address 828 1.1 tron from the resolved triple to the recipient entry which is appended 829 1.1 tron to both the queue entry list and the peer entry list. The addresses 830 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin for the same nexthop are batched in the entries up to the 831 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin <a href="postconf.5.html#transport_destination_recipient_limit"><i>transport</i>_destination_recipient_limit</a> for that transport. 832 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin This happens in qmgr_message_assign(), and apart 833 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin from that it operates with job and peer structures, it is basically the 834 1.1 tron same as in <tt>oqmgr</tt>. 835 1.1 tron 836 1.1 tron </p> 837 1.1 tron 838 1.1 tron <p> 839 1.1 tron 840 1.1 tron When the job is instantiated, it is enqueued on the transport's job 841 1.1 tron list based on the time its message was picked up by <tt>nqmgr</tt>. 842 1.1 tron For first batch of recipients this means it is appended to the end 843 1.1 tron of the job list, but the ordering of the job list by the enqueue 844 1.1 tron time is important as we will see shortly. 845 1.1 tron 846 1.1 tron </p> 847 1.1 tron 848 1.1 tron <p> 849 1.1 tron 850 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin [Now you should have a pretty good idea what the state of the 851 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin <tt>nqmgr</tt> is after a couple of messages were picked up, and what the 852 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin relation is between all those job, peer, queue and entry structures.] 853 1.1 tron 854 1.1 tron </p> 855 1.1 tron 856 1.1 tron <h3> <a name="<tt>nqmgr</tt>_selection"> How the entry selection 857 1.1 tron works </a> </h3> 858 1.1 tron 859 1.1 tron <p> 860 1.1 tron 861 1.1 tron Having prepared all those above mentioned structures, the task of 862 1.1 tron the <tt>nqmgr</tt>'s scheduler is to choose the recipient entries 863 1.1 tron one at a time and pass them to the delivery agent for corresponding 864 1.1 tron transport. Now how does this work? 865 1.1 tron 866 1.1 tron </p> 867 1.1 tron 868 1.1 tron <p> 869 1.1 tron 870 1.1 tron The first approximation of the new scheduling algorithm is like this: 871 1.1 tron 872 1.1 tron </p> 873 1.1 tron 874 1.1 tron <blockquote> 875 1.1 tron <pre> 876 1.1 tron foreach transport (round-robin-by-transport) 877 1.1 tron do 878 1.1 tron if transport busy continue 879 1.1 tron if transport process limit reached continue 880 1.1 tron foreach transport's job (in the order of the transport's job list) 881 1.1 tron do 882 1.1.1.3 tron foreach job's peer (round-robin-by-destination) 883 1.1.1.3 tron if peer->queue->concurrency < peer->queue->window 884 1.1.1.3 tron return next peer entry. 885 1.1.1.3 tron done 886 1.1 tron done 887 1.1 tron done 888 1.1 tron </pre> 889 1.1 tron </blockquote> 890 1.1 tron 891 1.1 tron <p> 892 1.1 tron 893 1.1 tron Now what is the "order of the transport's job list"? As we know 894 1.1 tron already, the job list is by default kept in the order the message 895 1.1 tron was picked up by the <tt>nqmgr</tt>. So by default we get the 896 1.1 tron top-level round-robin transport, and within each transport we get 897 1.1 tron the FIFO message delivery. The round-robin of the peers by the 898 1.1 tron destination is perhaps of little importance in most real-life cases 899 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin (unless the <a href="postconf.5.html#transport_destination_recipient_limit"><i>transport</i>_destination_recipient_limit</a> is reached, 900 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin in one job there 901 1.1 tron is only one peer structure for each destination), but theoretically 902 1.1 tron it makes sure that even within single jobs, destinations are treated 903 1.1 tron fairly. 904 1.1 tron 905 1.1 tron </p> 906 1.1 tron 907 1.1 tron <p> 908 1.1 tron 909 1.1 tron [By now you should have a feeling you really know how the scheduler 910 1.1 tron works, except for the preemption, under ideal conditions - that is, 911 1.1 tron no recipient resource limits and no destination concurrency problems.] 912 1.1 tron 913 1.1 tron </p> 914 1.1 tron 915 1.1 tron <h3> <a name="<tt>nqmgr</tt>_preemption"> How the preemption 916 1.1 tron works </a> </h3> 917 1.1 tron 918 1.1 tron <p> 919 1.1 tron 920 1.1 tron As you might perhaps expect by now, the transport's job list does 921 1.1 tron not remain sorted by the job's message enqueue time all the time. 922 1.1 tron The most cool thing about <tt>nqmgr</tt> is not the simple FIFO 923 1.1 tron delivery, but that it is able to slip mail with little recipients 924 1.1 tron past the mailing-list bulk mail. This is what the job preemption 925 1.1 tron is about - shuffling the jobs on the transport's job list to get 926 1.1 tron the best message delivery rates. Now how is it achieved? 927 1.1 tron 928 1.1 tron </p> 929 1.1 tron 930 1.1 tron <p> 931 1.1 tron 932 1.1 tron First I have to tell you that there are in fact two job lists in 933 1.1 tron each transport. One is the scheduler's job list, which the scheduler 934 1.1 tron is free to play with, while the other one keeps the jobs always 935 1.1 tron listed in the order of the enqueue time and is used for recipient 936 1.1 tron pool management we will discuss later. For now, we will deal with 937 1.1 tron the scheduler's job list only. 938 1.1 tron 939 1.1 tron </p> 940 1.1 tron 941 1.1 tron <p> 942 1.1 tron 943 1.1 tron So, we have the job list, which is first ordered by the time the 944 1.1 tron jobs' messages were enqueued, oldest messages first, the most recently 945 1.1 tron picked one at the end. For now, let's assume that there are no 946 1.1 tron destination concurrency problems. Without preemption, we pick some 947 1.1 tron entry of the first (oldest) job on the queue, assign it to delivery 948 1.1 tron agent, pick another one from the same job, assign it again, and so 949 1.1 tron on, until all the entries are used and the job is delivered. We 950 1.1 tron would then move onto the next job and so on and on. Now how do we 951 1.1 tron manage to sneak in some entries from the recently added jobs when 952 1.1 tron the first job on the job list belongs to a message going to the 953 1.1 tron mailing-list and has thousands of recipient entries? 954 1.1 tron 955 1.1 tron </p> 956 1.1 tron 957 1.1 tron <p> 958 1.1 tron 959 1.1 tron The <tt>nqmgr</tt>'s answer is that we can artificially "inflate" 960 1.1 tron the delivery time of that first job by some constant for free - it 961 1.1 tron is basically the same trick you might remember as "accumulation of 962 1.1 tron potential" from the amortized complexity lessons. For example, 963 1.1 tron instead of delivering the entries of the first job on the job list 964 1.1 tron every time a delivery agent becomes available, we can do it only 965 1.1 tron every second time. If you view the moments the delivery agent becomes 966 1.1 tron available on a timeline as "delivery slots", then instead of using 967 1.1 tron every delivery slot for the first job, we can use only every other 968 1.1 tron slot, and still the overall delivery efficiency of the first job 969 1.1 tron remains the same. So the delivery <tt>11112222</tt> becomes 970 1.1 tron <tt>1.1.1.1.2.2.2.2</tt> (1 and 2 are the imaginary job numbers, . 971 1.1 tron denotes the free slot). Now what do we do with free slots? 972 1.1 tron 973 1.1 tron </p> 974 1.1 tron 975 1.1 tron <p> 976 1.1 tron 977 1.1 tron As you might have guessed, we will use them for sneaking the mail 978 1.1 tron with little recipients in. For example, if we have one four-recipient 979 1.1 tron mail followed by four one recipients mail, the delivery sequence 980 1.1 tron (that is, the sequence in which the jobs are assigned to the 981 1.1 tron delivery slots) might look like this: <tt>12131415</tt>. Hmm, fine 982 1.1 tron for sneaking in the single recipient mail, but how do we sneak in 983 1.1 tron the mail with more than one recipient? Say if we have one four-recipient 984 1.1 tron mail followed by two two-recipient mails? 985 1.1 tron 986 1.1 tron </p> 987 1.1 tron 988 1.1 tron <p> 989 1.1 tron 990 1.1 tron The simple answer would be to use delivery sequence <tt>12121313</tt>. 991 1.1 tron But the problem is that this does not scale well. Imagine you have 992 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin mail with a thousand recipients followed by mail with a hundred recipients. 993 1.1 tron It is tempting to suggest the delivery sequence like <tt>121212....</tt>, 994 1.1 tron but alas! Imagine there arrives another mail with say ten recipients. 995 1.1 tron But there are no free slots anymore, so it can't slip by, not even 996 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin if it had only one recipient. It will be stuck until the 997 1.1 tron hundred-recipient mail is delivered, which really sucks. 998 1.1 tron 999 1.1 tron </p> 1000 1.1 tron 1001 1.1 tron <p> 1002 1.1 tron 1003 1.1 tron So, it becomes obvious that while inflating the message to get 1004 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin free slots is a great idea, one has to be really careful of how the 1005 1.1 tron free slots are assigned, otherwise one might corner himself. So, 1006 1.1 tron how does <tt>nqmgr</tt> really use the free slots? 1007 1.1 tron 1008 1.1 tron </p> 1009 1.1 tron 1010 1.1 tron <p> 1011 1.1 tron 1012 1.1 tron The key idea is that one does not have to generate the free slots 1013 1.1 tron in a uniform way. The delivery sequence <tt>111...1</tt> is no 1014 1.1 tron worse than <tt>1.1.1.1</tt>, in fact, it is even better as some 1015 1.1 tron entries are in the first case selected earlier than in the second 1016 1.1 tron case, and none is selected later! So it is possible to first 1017 1.1 tron "accumulate" the free delivery slots and then use them all at once. 1018 1.1 tron It is even possible to accumulate some, then use them, then accumulate 1019 1.1 tron some more and use them again, as in <tt>11..1.1</tt> . 1020 1.1 tron 1021 1.1 tron </p> 1022 1.1 tron 1023 1.1 tron <p> 1024 1.1 tron 1025 1.1 tron Let's get back to the one hundred recipient example. We now know 1026 1.1 tron that we could first accumulate one hundred free slots, and only 1027 1.1 tron after then to preempt the first job and sneak the one hundred 1028 1.1 tron recipient mail in. Applying the algorithm recursively, we see the 1029 1.1 tron hundred recipient job can accumulate ten free delivery slots, and 1030 1.1 tron then we could preempt it and sneak in the ten-recipient mail... 1031 1.1 tron Wait wait wait! Could we? Aren't we overinflating the original one 1032 1.1 tron thousand recipient mail? 1033 1.1 tron 1034 1.1 tron </p> 1035 1.1 tron 1036 1.1 tron <p> 1037 1.1 tron 1038 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin Well, despite the fact that it looks so at the first glance, another trick will 1039 1.1 tron allow us to answer "no, we are not!". If we had said that we will 1040 1.1 tron inflate the delivery time twice at maximum, and then we consider 1041 1.1 tron every other slot as a free slot, then we would overinflate in case 1042 1.1 tron of the recursive preemption. BUT! The trick is that if we use only 1043 1.1 tron every n-th slot as a free slot for n>2, there is always some worst 1044 1.1 tron inflation factor which we can guarantee not to be breached, even 1045 1.1 tron if we apply the algorithm recursively. To be precise, if for every 1046 1.1 tron k>1 normally used slots we accumulate one free delivery slot, than 1047 1.1 tron the inflation factor is not worse than k/(k-1) no matter how many 1048 1.1 tron recursive preemptions happen. And it's not worse than (k+1)/k if 1049 1.1 tron only non-recursive preemption happens. Now, having got through the 1050 1.1 tron theory and the related math, let's see how <tt>nqmgr</tt> implements 1051 1.1 tron this. 1052 1.1 tron 1053 1.1 tron </p> 1054 1.1 tron 1055 1.1 tron <p> 1056 1.1 tron 1057 1.1 tron Each job has so called "available delivery slot" counter. Each 1058 1.1 tron transport has a <a href="postconf.5.html#transport_delivery_slot_cost"><i>transport</i>_delivery_slot_cost</a> parameter, which 1059 1.1 tron defaults to <a href="postconf.5.html#default_delivery_slot_cost">default_delivery_slot_cost</a> parameter which is set to 5 1060 1.1 tron by default. This is the k from the paragraph above. Each time k 1061 1.1 tron entries of the job are selected for delivery, this counter is 1062 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin incremented by one. Once there are some slots accumulated, a job which 1063 1.1 tron requires no more than that number of slots to be fully delivered 1064 1.1 tron can preempt this job. 1065 1.1 tron 1066 1.1 tron </p> 1067 1.1 tron 1068 1.1 tron <p> 1069 1.1 tron 1070 1.1 tron [Well, the truth is, the counter is incremented every time an entry 1071 1.1.1.3 tron is selected and it is divided by k when it is used. 1072 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin But to understand, it's good enough to use 1073 1.1 tron the above approximation of the truth.] 1074 1.1 tron 1075 1.1 tron </p> 1076 1.1 tron 1077 1.1 tron <p> 1078 1.1 tron 1079 1.1 tron OK, so now we know the conditions which must be satisfied so one 1080 1.1 tron job can preempt another one. But what job gets preempted, how do 1081 1.1 tron we choose what job preempts it if there are several valid candidates, 1082 1.1 tron and when does all this exactly happen? 1083 1.1 tron 1084 1.1 tron </p> 1085 1.1 tron 1086 1.1 tron <p> 1087 1.1 tron 1088 1.1 tron The answer for the first part is simple. The job whose entry was 1089 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin selected the last time is the so called current job. Normally, it is 1090 1.1 tron the first job on the scheduler's job list, but destination concurrency 1091 1.1 tron limits may change this as we will see later. It is always only the 1092 1.1 tron current job which may get preempted. 1093 1.1 tron 1094 1.1 tron </p> 1095 1.1 tron 1096 1.1 tron <p> 1097 1.1 tron 1098 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin Now for the second part. The current job has a certain amount of 1099 1.1 tron recipient entries, and as such may accumulate at maximum some amount 1100 1.1 tron of available delivery slots. It might have already accumulated some, 1101 1.1 tron and perhaps even already used some when it was preempted before 1102 1.1 tron (remember a job can be preempted several times). In either case, 1103 1.1 tron we know how many are accumulated and how many are left to deliver, 1104 1.1 tron so we know how many it may yet accumulate at maximum. Every other 1105 1.1 tron job which may be delivered by less than that number of slots is a 1106 1.1 tron valid candidate for preemption. How do we choose among them? 1107 1.1 tron 1108 1.1 tron </p> 1109 1.1 tron 1110 1.1 tron <p> 1111 1.1 tron 1112 1.1 tron The answer is - the one with maximum enqueue_time/recipient_entry_count. 1113 1.1 tron That is, the older the job is, the more we should try to deliver 1114 1.1 tron it in order to get best message delivery rates. These rates are of 1115 1.1 tron course subject to how many recipients the message has, therefore 1116 1.1 tron the division by the recipient (entry) count. No one shall be surprised 1117 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin that a message with n recipients takes n times longer to deliver than 1118 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin a message with one recipient. 1119 1.1 tron 1120 1.1 tron </p> 1121 1.1 tron 1122 1.1 tron <p> 1123 1.1 tron 1124 1.1 tron Now let's recap the previous two paragraphs. Isn't it too complicated? 1125 1.1 tron Why don't the candidates come only among the jobs which can be 1126 1.1 tron delivered within the number of slots the current job already 1127 1.1 tron accumulated? Why do we need to estimate how much it has yet to 1128 1.1 tron accumulate? If you found out the answer, congratulate yourself. If 1129 1.1 tron we did it this simple way, we would always choose the candidate 1130 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin with the fewest recipient entries. If there were enough single recipient 1131 1.1 tron mails coming in, they would always slip by the bulk mail as soon 1132 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin as possible, and the two or more recipients mail would never get 1133 1.1 tron a chance, no matter how long they have been sitting around in the 1134 1.1 tron job list. 1135 1.1 tron 1136 1.1 tron </p> 1137 1.1 tron 1138 1.1 tron <p> 1139 1.1 tron 1140 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin This candidate selection has an interesting implication - that when 1141 1.1 tron we choose the best candidate for preemption (this is done in 1142 1.1 tron qmgr_choose_candidate()), it may happen that we may not use it for 1143 1.1 tron preemption immediately. This leads to an answer to the last part 1144 1.1 tron of the original question - when does the preemption happen? 1145 1.1 tron 1146 1.1 tron </p> 1147 1.1 tron 1148 1.1 tron <p> 1149 1.1 tron 1150 1.1 tron The preemption attempt happens every time next transport's recipient 1151 1.1 tron entry is to be chosen for delivery. To avoid needless overhead, the 1152 1.1 tron preemption is not attempted if the current job could never accumulate 1153 1.1 tron more than <a href="postconf.5.html#transport_minimum_delivery_slots"><i>transport</i>_minimum_delivery_slots</a> (defaults to 1154 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin <a href="postconf.5.html#default_minimum_delivery_slots">default_minimum_delivery_slots</a> which defaults to 3). If there are 1155 1.1 tron already enough accumulated slots to preempt the current job by the 1156 1.1 tron chosen best candidate, it is done immediately. This basically means 1157 1.1 tron that the candidate is moved in front of the current job on the 1158 1.1 tron scheduler's job list and decreasing the accumulated slot counter 1159 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin by the amount used by the candidate. If there are not enough slots... 1160 1.1 tron well, I could say that nothing happens and the another preemption 1161 1.1 tron is attempted the next time. But that's not the complete truth. 1162 1.1 tron 1163 1.1 tron </p> 1164 1.1 tron 1165 1.1 tron <p> 1166 1.1 tron 1167 1.1 tron The truth is that it turns out that it is not really necessary to 1168 1.1 tron wait until the jobs counter accumulates all the delivery slots in 1169 1.1 tron advance. Say we have ten-recipient mail followed by two two-recipient 1170 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin mails. If the preemption happened when enough delivery slots accumulate 1171 1.1 tron (assuming slot cost 2), the delivery sequence becomes 1172 1.1 tron <tt>11112211113311</tt>. Now what would we get if we would wait 1173 1.1 tron only for 50% of the necessary slots to accumulate and we promise 1174 1.1 tron we would wait for the remaining 50% later, after we get back 1175 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin to the preempted job? If we use such a slot loan, the delivery sequence 1176 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin becomes <tt>11221111331111</tt>. As we can see, it makes it not 1177 1.1 tron considerably worse for the delivery of the ten-recipient mail, but 1178 1.1 tron it allows the small messages to be delivered sooner. 1179 1.1 tron 1180 1.1 tron </p> 1181 1.1 tron 1182 1.1 tron <p> 1183 1.1 tron 1184 1.1 tron The concept of these slot loans is where the 1185 1.1 tron <a href="postconf.5.html#transport_delivery_slot_discount"><i>transport</i>_delivery_slot_discount</a> and 1186 1.1 tron <a href="postconf.5.html#transport_delivery_slot_loan"><i>transport</i>_delivery_slot_loan</a> come from (they default to 1187 1.1 tron <a href="postconf.5.html#default_delivery_slot_discount">default_delivery_slot_discount</a> and <a href="postconf.5.html#default_delivery_slot_loan">default_delivery_slot_loan</a>, whose 1188 1.1 tron values are by default 50 and 3, respectively). The discount (resp. 1189 1.1 tron loan) specifies how many percent (resp. how many slots) one "gets 1190 1.1 tron in advance", when the number of slots required to deliver the best 1191 1.1 tron candidate is compared with the number of slots the current slot had 1192 1.1 tron accumulated so far. 1193 1.1 tron 1194 1.1 tron </p> 1195 1.1 tron 1196 1.1 tron <p> 1197 1.1 tron 1198 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin And that pretty much concludes this chapter. 1199 1.1 tron 1200 1.1 tron </p> 1201 1.1 tron 1202 1.1 tron <p> 1203 1.1 tron 1204 1.1 tron [Now you should have a feeling that you pretty much understand the 1205 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin scheduler and the preemption, or at least that you will have 1206 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin after you read the last chapter a couple more times. You shall clearly 1207 1.1 tron see the job list and the preemption happening at its head, in ideal 1208 1.1 tron delivery conditions. The feeling of understanding shall last until 1209 1.1 tron you start wondering what happens if some of the jobs are blocked, 1210 1.1 tron which you might eventually figure out correctly from what had been 1211 1.1 tron said already. But I would be surprised if your mental image of the 1212 1.1 tron scheduler's functionality is not completely shattered once you 1213 1.1 tron start wondering how it works when not all recipients may be read 1214 1.1 tron in-core. More on that later.] 1215 1.1 tron 1216 1.1 tron </p> 1217 1.1 tron 1218 1.1 tron <h3> <a name="<tt>nqmgr</tt>_concurrency"> How destination concurrency 1219 1.1 tron limits affect the scheduling algorithm </a> </h3> 1220 1.1 tron 1221 1.1 tron <p> 1222 1.1 tron 1223 1.1 tron The <tt>nqmgr</tt> uses the same algorithm for destination concurrency 1224 1.1 tron control as <tt>oqmgr</tt>. Now what happens when the destination 1225 1.1 tron limits are reached and no more entries for that destination may be 1226 1.1 tron selected by the scheduler? 1227 1.1 tron 1228 1.1 tron </p> 1229 1.1 tron 1230 1.1 tron <p> 1231 1.1 tron 1232 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin From the user's point of view it is all simple. If some of the peers 1233 1.1 tron of a job can't be selected, those peers are simply skipped by the 1234 1.1 tron entry selection algorithm (the pseudo-code described before) and 1235 1.1 tron only the selectable ones are used. If none of the peers may be 1236 1.1 tron selected, the job is declared a "blocker job". Blocker jobs are 1237 1.1 tron skipped by the entry selection algorithm and they are also excluded 1238 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin from the candidates for preemption of the current job. Thus the scheduler 1239 1.1 tron effectively behaves as if the blocker jobs didn't exist on the job 1240 1.1 tron list at all. As soon as at least one of the peers of a blocker job 1241 1.1 tron becomes unblocked (that is, the delivery agent handling the delivery 1242 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin of the recipient entry for the given destination successfully finishes), 1243 1.1 tron the job's blocker status is removed and the job again participates 1244 1.1 tron in all further scheduler actions normally. 1245 1.1 tron 1246 1.1 tron </p> 1247 1.1 tron 1248 1.1 tron <p> 1249 1.1 tron 1250 1.1 tron So the summary is that the users don't really have to be concerned 1251 1.1 tron about the interaction of the destination limits and scheduling 1252 1.1 tron algorithm. It works well on its own and there are no knobs they 1253 1.1 tron would need to control it. 1254 1.1 tron 1255 1.1 tron </p> 1256 1.1 tron 1257 1.1 tron <p> 1258 1.1 tron 1259 1.1 tron From a programmer's point of view, the blocker jobs complicate the 1260 1.1 tron scheduler quite a lot. Without them, the jobs on the job list would 1261 1.1 tron be normally delivered in strict FIFO order. If the current job is 1262 1.1 tron preempted, the job preempting it is completely delivered unless it 1263 1.1 tron is preempted itself. Without blockers, the current job is thus 1264 1.1 tron always either the first job on the job list, or the top of the stack 1265 1.1 tron of jobs preempting the first job on the job list. 1266 1.1 tron 1267 1.1 tron </p> 1268 1.1 tron 1269 1.1 tron <p> 1270 1.1 tron 1271 1.1 tron The visualization of the job list and the preemption stack without 1272 1.1 tron blockers would be like this: 1273 1.1 tron 1274 1.1 tron </p> 1275 1.1 tron 1276 1.1 tron <blockquote> 1277 1.1 tron <pre> 1278 1.1 tron first job-> 1--2--3--5--6--8--... <- job list 1279 1.1 tron on job list | 1280 1.1 tron 4 <- preemption stack 1281 1.1 tron | 1282 1.1 tron current job-> 7 1283 1.1 tron </pre> 1284 1.1 tron </blockquote> 1285 1.1 tron 1286 1.1 tron <p> 1287 1.1 tron 1288 1.1 tron In the example above we see that job 1 was preempted by job 4 and 1289 1.1 tron then job 4 was preempted by job 7. After job 7 is completed, remaining 1290 1.1 tron entries of job 4 are selected, and once they are all selected, job 1291 1.1 tron 1 continues. 1292 1.1 tron 1293 1.1 tron </p> 1294 1.1 tron 1295 1.1 tron <p> 1296 1.1 tron 1297 1.1 tron As we see, it's all very clean and straightforward. Now how does 1298 1.1 tron this change because of blockers? 1299 1.1 tron 1300 1.1 tron </p> 1301 1.1 tron 1302 1.1 tron <p> 1303 1.1 tron 1304 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin The answer is: a lot. Any job may become a blocker job at any time, 1305 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin and also become a normal job again at any time. This has several 1306 1.1 tron important implications: 1307 1.1 tron 1308 1.1 tron </p> 1309 1.1 tron 1310 1.1 tron <ol> 1311 1.1 tron 1312 1.1 tron <li> <p> 1313 1.1 tron 1314 1.1 tron The jobs may be completed in arbitrary order. For example, in the 1315 1.1 tron example above, if the current job 7 becomes blocked, the next job 1316 1.1 tron 4 may complete before the job 7 becomes unblocked again. Or if both 1317 1.1 tron 7 and 4 are blocked, then 1 is completed, then 7 becomes unblocked 1318 1.1 tron and is completed, then 2 is completed and only after that 4 becomes 1319 1.1 tron unblocked and is completed... You get the idea. 1320 1.1 tron 1321 1.1 tron </p> 1322 1.1 tron 1323 1.1 tron <p> 1324 1.1 tron 1325 1.1 tron [Interesting side note: even when jobs are delivered out of order, 1326 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin from a single destination's point of view the jobs are still delivered 1327 1.1 tron in the expected order (that is, FIFO unless there was some preemption 1328 1.1 tron involved). This is because whenever a destination queue becomes 1329 1.1 tron unblocked (the destination limit allows selection of more recipient 1330 1.1 tron entries for that destination), all jobs which have peers for that 1331 1.1 tron destination are unblocked at once.] 1332 1.1 tron 1333 1.1 tron </p> 1334 1.1 tron 1335 1.1 tron <li> <p> 1336 1.1 tron 1337 1.1 tron The idea of the preemption stack at the head of the job list is 1338 1.1 tron gone. That is, it must be possible to preempt any job on the job 1339 1.1 tron list. For example, if the jobs 7, 4, 1 and 2 in the example above 1340 1.1 tron become all blocked, job 3 becomes the current job. And of course 1341 1.1 tron we do not want the preemption to be affected by the fact that there 1342 1.1 tron are some blocked jobs or not. Therefore, if it turns out that job 1343 1.1 tron 3 might be preempted by job 6, the implementation shall make it 1344 1.1 tron possible. 1345 1.1 tron 1346 1.1 tron </p> 1347 1.1 tron 1348 1.1 tron <li> <p> 1349 1.1 tron 1350 1.1 tron The idea of the linear preemption stack itself is gone. It's no 1351 1.1 tron longer true that one job is always preempted by only one job at one 1352 1.1 tron time (that is directly preempted, not counting the recursively 1353 1.1 tron nested jobs). For example, in the example above, job 1 is directly 1354 1.1 tron preempted by only job 4, and job 4 by job 7. Now assume job 7 becomes 1355 1.1 tron blocked, and job 4 is being delivered. If it accumulates enough 1356 1.1 tron delivery slots, it is natural that it might be preempted for example 1357 1.1 tron by job 8. Now job 4 is preempted by both job 7 AND job 8 at the 1358 1.1 tron same time. 1359 1.1 tron 1360 1.1 tron </p> 1361 1.1 tron 1362 1.1 tron </ol> 1363 1.1 tron 1364 1.1 tron <p> 1365 1.1 tron 1366 1.1 tron Now combine the points 2) and 3) with point 1) again and you realize 1367 1.1 tron that the relations on the once linear job list became pretty 1368 1.1 tron complicated. If we extend the point 3) example: jobs 7 and 8 preempt 1369 1.1 tron job 4, now job 8 becomes blocked too, then job 4 completes. Tricky, 1370 1.1 tron huh? 1371 1.1 tron 1372 1.1 tron </p> 1373 1.1 tron 1374 1.1 tron <p> 1375 1.1 tron 1376 1.1 tron If I illustrate the relations after the above mentioned examples 1377 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin (but those in point 1), the situation would look like this: 1378 1.1 tron 1379 1.1 tron </p> 1380 1.1 tron 1381 1.1 tron <blockquote> 1382 1.1 tron <pre> 1383 1.1 tron v- parent 1384 1.1 tron 1385 1.1 tron adoptive parent -> 1--2--3--5--... <- "stack" level 0 1386 1.1 tron | | 1387 1.1 tron parent gone -> ? 6 <- "stack" level 1 1388 1.1 tron / \ 1389 1.1 tron children -> 7 8 ^- child <- "stack" level 2 1390 1.1 tron 1391 1.1 tron ^- siblings 1392 1.1 tron </pre> 1393 1.1 tron </blockquote> 1394 1.1 tron 1395 1.1 tron <p> 1396 1.1 tron 1397 1.1 tron Now how does <tt>nqmgr</tt> deal with all these complicated relations? 1398 1.1 tron 1399 1.1 tron </p> 1400 1.1 tron 1401 1.1 tron <p> 1402 1.1 tron 1403 1.1 tron Well, it maintains them all as described, but fortunately, all these 1404 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin relations are necessary only for the purpose of proper counting of 1405 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin available delivery slots. For the purpose of ordering the jobs for 1406 1.1 tron entry selection, the original rule still applies: "the job preempting 1407 1.1 tron the current job is moved in front of the current job on the job 1408 1.1 tron list". So for entry selection purposes, the job relations remain 1409 1.1 tron as simple as this: 1410 1.1 tron 1411 1.1 tron </p> 1412 1.1 tron 1413 1.1 tron <blockquote> 1414 1.1 tron <pre> 1415 1.1 tron 7--8--1--2--6--3--5--.. <- scheduler's job list order 1416 1.1 tron </pre> 1417 1.1 tron </blockquote> 1418 1.1 tron 1419 1.1 tron <p> 1420 1.1 tron 1421 1.1 tron The job list order and the preemption parent/child/siblings relations 1422 1.1 tron are maintained separately. And because the selection works only 1423 1.1 tron with the job list, you can happily forget about those complicated 1424 1.1 tron relations unless you want to study the <tt>nqmgr</tt> sources. In 1425 1.1 tron that case the text above might provide some helpful introduction 1426 1.1 tron to the problem domain. Otherwise I suggest you just forget about 1427 1.1 tron all this and stick with the user's point of view: the blocker jobs 1428 1.1 tron are simply ignored. 1429 1.1 tron 1430 1.1 tron </p> 1431 1.1 tron 1432 1.1 tron <p> 1433 1.1 tron 1434 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin [By now, you should have a feeling that there are more things going 1435 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin on under the hood than you ever wanted to know. You decide that 1436 1.1 tron forgetting about this chapter is the best you can do for the sake 1437 1.1 tron of your mind's health and you basically stick with the idea how the 1438 1.1 tron scheduler works in ideal conditions, when there are no blockers, 1439 1.1 tron which is good enough.] 1440 1.1 tron 1441 1.1 tron </p> 1442 1.1 tron 1443 1.1 tron <h3> <a name="<tt>nqmgr</tt>_memory"> Dealing with memory resource 1444 1.1 tron limits </a> </h3> 1445 1.1 tron 1446 1.1 tron <p> 1447 1.1 tron 1448 1.1 tron When discussing the <tt>nqmgr</tt> scheduler, we have so far assumed 1449 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin that all recipients of all messages in the "<a href="QSHAPE_README.html#active_queue">active" queue</a> are completely 1450 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin read into memory. This is simply not true. There is an upper 1451 1.1 tron bound on the amount of memory the <tt>nqmgr</tt> may use, and 1452 1.1 tron therefore it must impose some limits on the information it may store 1453 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin in memory at any given time. 1454 1.1 tron 1455 1.1 tron </p> 1456 1.1 tron 1457 1.1 tron <p> 1458 1.1 tron 1459 1.1 tron First of all, not all messages may be read in-core at once. At any 1460 1.1 tron time, only <a href="postconf.5.html#qmgr_message_active_limit">qmgr_message_active_limit</a> messages may be read in-core 1461 1.1 tron at maximum. When read into memory, the messages are picked from the 1462 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin "<a href="QSHAPE_README.html#incoming_queue">incoming"</a> and "<a href="QSHAPE_README.html#deferred_queue">deferred" queues</a> and moved to the "<a href="QSHAPE_README.html#active_queue">active" queue</a> 1463 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin (incoming having priority), so if there are more than 1464 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin <a href="postconf.5.html#qmgr_message_active_limit">qmgr_message_active_limit</a> messages queued in the "<a href="QSHAPE_README.html#active_queue">active" queue</a>, the 1465 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin rest will have to wait until (some of) the messages in the "<a href="QSHAPE_README.html#active_queue">active" queue</a> 1466 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin are completely delivered (or deferred). 1467 1.1 tron 1468 1.1 tron </p> 1469 1.1 tron 1470 1.1 tron <p> 1471 1.1 tron 1472 1.1 tron Even with the limited amount of in-core messages, there is another 1473 1.1 tron limit which must be imposed in order to avoid memory exhaustion. 1474 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin Each message may contain a huge number of recipients (tens or hundreds 1475 1.1 tron of thousands are not uncommon), so if <tt>nqmgr</tt> read all 1476 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin recipients of all messages in the "<a href="QSHAPE_README.html#active_queue">active" queue</a>, it may easily run 1477 1.1 tron out of memory. Therefore there must be some upper bound on the 1478 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin amount of message recipients which are read into memory at the 1479 1.1 tron same time. 1480 1.1 tron 1481 1.1 tron </p> 1482 1.1 tron 1483 1.1 tron <p> 1484 1.1 tron 1485 1.1 tron Before discussing how exactly <tt>nqmgr</tt> implements the recipient 1486 1.1 tron limits, let's see how the sole existence of the limits themselves 1487 1.1 tron affects the <tt>nqmgr</tt> and its scheduler. 1488 1.1 tron 1489 1.1 tron </p> 1490 1.1 tron 1491 1.1 tron <p> 1492 1.1 tron 1493 1.1 tron The message limit is straightforward - it just limits the size of 1494 1.1 tron the 1495 1.1 tron lookahead the <tt>nqmgr</tt>'s scheduler has when choosing which 1496 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin message can preempt the current one. Messages not in the "<a href="QSHAPE_README.html#active_queue">active" queue</a> 1497 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin are simply not considered at all. 1498 1.1 tron 1499 1.1 tron </p> 1500 1.1 tron 1501 1.1 tron <p> 1502 1.1 tron 1503 1.1 tron The recipient limit complicates more things. First of all, the 1504 1.1 tron message reading code must support reading the recipients in batches, 1505 1.1 tron which among other things means accessing the queue file several 1506 1.1 tron times and continuing where the last recipient batch ended. This is 1507 1.1 tron invoked by the scheduler whenever the current job has space for more 1508 1.1 tron recipients, subject to transport's refill_limit and refill_delay parameters. 1509 1.1 tron It is also done any time when all 1510 1.1 tron in-core recipients of the message are dealt with (which may also 1511 1.1 tron mean they were deferred) but there are still more in the queue file. 1512 1.1 tron 1513 1.1 tron </p> 1514 1.1 tron 1515 1.1 tron <p> 1516 1.1 tron 1517 1.1 tron The second complication is that with some recipients left unread 1518 1.1 tron in the queue file, the scheduler can't operate with exact counts 1519 1.1 tron of recipient entries. With unread recipients, it is not clear how 1520 1.1 tron many recipient entries there will be, as they are subject to 1521 1.1 tron per-destination grouping. It is not even clear to what transports 1522 1.1 tron (and thus jobs) the recipients will be assigned. And with messages 1523 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin coming from the "<a href="QSHAPE_README.html#deferred_queue">deferred" queue</a>, it is not even clear how many unread 1524 1.1 tron recipients are still to be delivered. This all means that the 1525 1.1 tron scheduler must use only estimates of how many recipients entries 1526 1.1 tron there will be. Fortunately, it is possible to estimate the minimum 1527 1.1 tron and maximum correctly, so the scheduler can always err on the safe 1528 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin side. Obviously, the better the estimates, the better the results, so 1529 1.1 tron it is best when we are able to read all recipients in-core and turn 1530 1.1 tron the estimates into exact counts, or at least try to read as many 1531 1.1 tron as possible to make the estimates as accurate as possible. 1532 1.1 tron 1533 1.1 tron </p> 1534 1.1 tron 1535 1.1 tron <p> 1536 1.1 tron 1537 1.1 tron The third complication is that it is no longer true that the scheduler 1538 1.1 tron is done with a job once all of its in-core recipients are delivered. 1539 1.1 tron It is possible that the job will be revived later, when another 1540 1.1 tron batch of recipients is read in core. It is also possible that some 1541 1.1 tron jobs will be created for the first time long after the first batch 1542 1.1 tron of recipients was read in core. The <tt>nqmgr</tt> code must be 1543 1.1 tron ready to handle all such situations. 1544 1.1 tron 1545 1.1 tron </p> 1546 1.1 tron 1547 1.1 tron <p> 1548 1.1 tron 1549 1.1 tron And finally, the fourth complication is that the <tt>nqmgr</tt> 1550 1.1 tron code must somehow impose the recipient limit itself. Now how does 1551 1.1 tron it achieve it? 1552 1.1 tron 1553 1.1 tron </p> 1554 1.1 tron 1555 1.1 tron <p> 1556 1.1 tron 1557 1.1 tron Perhaps the easiest solution would be to say that each message may 1558 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin have at maximum X recipients stored in-core, but such a solution would 1559 1.1 tron be poor for several reasons. With reasonable <a href="postconf.5.html#qmgr_message_active_limit">qmgr_message_active_limit</a> 1560 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin values, the X would have to be quite low to maintain a reasonable 1561 1.1 tron memory footprint. And with low X lots of things would not work well. 1562 1.1 tron The <tt>nqmgr</tt> would have problems to use the 1563 1.1 tron <a href="postconf.5.html#transport_destination_recipient_limit"><i>transport</i>_destination_recipient_limit</a> efficiently. The 1564 1.1 tron scheduler's preemption would be suboptimal as the recipient count 1565 1.1 tron estimates would be inaccurate. The message queue file would have 1566 1.1 tron to be accessed many times to read in more recipients again and 1567 1.1 tron again. 1568 1.1 tron 1569 1.1 tron </p> 1570 1.1 tron 1571 1.1 tron <p> 1572 1.1 tron 1573 1.1 tron Therefore it seems reasonable to have a solution which does not use 1574 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin a limit imposed on a per-message basis, but which maintains a pool 1575 1.1 tron of available recipient slots, which can be shared among all messages 1576 1.1 tron in the most efficient manner. And as we do not want separate 1577 1.1 tron transports to compete for resources whenever possible, it seems 1578 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin appropriate to maintain such a recipient pool for each transport 1579 1.1 tron separately. This is the general idea, now how does it work in 1580 1.1 tron practice? 1581 1.1 tron 1582 1.1 tron </p> 1583 1.1 tron 1584 1.1 tron <p> 1585 1.1 tron 1586 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin First we have to solve a little chicken-and-egg problem. If we want 1587 1.1 tron to use the per-transport recipient pools, we first need to know to 1588 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin what transport(s) the message is assigned. But we will find that 1589 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin out only after we first read in the recipients. So it is obvious 1590 1.1 tron that we first have to read in some recipients, use them to find out 1591 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin to what transports the message is to be assigned, and only after 1592 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin that can we use the per-transport recipient pools. 1593 1.1 tron 1594 1.1 tron </p> 1595 1.1 tron 1596 1.1 tron <p> 1597 1.1 tron 1598 1.1 tron Now how many recipients shall we read for the first time? This is 1599 1.1 tron what <a href="postconf.5.html#qmgr_message_recipient_minimum">qmgr_message_recipient_minimum</a> and <a href="postconf.5.html#qmgr_message_recipient_limit">qmgr_message_recipient_limit</a> 1600 1.1 tron values control. The <a href="postconf.5.html#qmgr_message_recipient_minimum">qmgr_message_recipient_minimum</a> value specifies 1601 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin how many recipients of each message we will read the first time, 1602 1.1 tron no matter what. It is necessary to read at least one recipient 1603 1.1 tron before we can assign the message to a transport and create the first 1604 1.1 tron job. However, reading only <a href="postconf.5.html#qmgr_message_recipient_minimum">qmgr_message_recipient_minimum</a> recipients 1605 1.1 tron even if there are only few messages with few recipients in-core would 1606 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin be wasteful. Therefore if there are fewer than <a href="postconf.5.html#qmgr_message_recipient_limit">qmgr_message_recipient_limit</a> 1607 1.1 tron recipients in-core so far, the first batch of recipients may be 1608 1.1 tron larger than <a href="postconf.5.html#qmgr_message_recipient_minimum">qmgr_message_recipient_minimum</a> - as large as is required 1609 1.1 tron to reach the <a href="postconf.5.html#qmgr_message_recipient_limit">qmgr_message_recipient_limit</a> limit. 1610 1.1 tron 1611 1.1 tron </p> 1612 1.1 tron 1613 1.1 tron <p> 1614 1.1 tron 1615 1.1 tron Once the first batch of recipients was read in core and the message 1616 1.1 tron jobs were created, the size of the subsequent recipient batches (if 1617 1.1 tron any - of course it's best when all recipients are read in one batch) 1618 1.1 tron is based solely on the position of the message jobs on their 1619 1.1 tron corresponding transports' job lists. Each transport has a pool of 1620 1.1 tron <a href="postconf.5.html#transport_recipient_limit"><i>transport</i>_recipient_limit</a> recipient slots which it can 1621 1.1 tron distribute among its jobs (how this is done is described later). 1622 1.1 tron The subsequent recipient batch may be as large as the sum of all 1623 1.1 tron recipient slots of all jobs of the message permits (plus the 1624 1.1 tron <a href="postconf.5.html#qmgr_message_recipient_minimum">qmgr_message_recipient_minimum</a> amount which always applies). 1625 1.1 tron 1626 1.1 tron </p> 1627 1.1 tron 1628 1.1 tron <p> 1629 1.1 tron 1630 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin For example, if a message has three jobs, the first with 1 recipient 1631 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin still in-core and 4 recipient slots, the second with 5 recipients in-core 1632 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin and 5 recipient slots, and the third with 2 recipients in-core and 0 1633 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin recipient slots, it has 1+5+2=8 recipients in-core and 4+5+0=9 jobs' 1634 1.1 tron recipients slots in total. This means that we could immediately 1635 1.1 tron read 2+<a href="postconf.5.html#qmgr_message_recipient_minimum">qmgr_message_recipient_minimum</a> more recipients of that message 1636 1.1 tron in core. 1637 1.1 tron 1638 1.1 tron </p> 1639 1.1 tron 1640 1.1 tron <p> 1641 1.1 tron 1642 1.1 tron The above example illustrates several things which might be worth 1643 1.1 tron mentioning explicitly: first, note that although the per-transport 1644 1.1 tron slots are assigned to particular jobs, we can't guarantee that once 1645 1.1 tron the next batch of recipients is read in core, that the corresponding 1646 1.1 tron amounts of recipients will be assigned to those jobs. The jobs lend 1647 1.1 tron its slots to the message as a whole, so it is possible that some 1648 1.1 tron jobs end up sponsoring other jobs of their message. For example, 1649 1.1 tron if in the example above the 2 newly read recipients were assigned 1650 1.1 tron to the second job, the first job sponsored the second job with 2 1651 1.1 tron slots. The second notable thing is the third job, which has more 1652 1.1 tron recipients in-core than it has slots. Apart from sponsoring by other 1653 1.1 tron job we just saw it can be result of the first recipient batch, which 1654 1.1 tron is sponsored from global recipient pool of <a href="postconf.5.html#qmgr_message_recipient_limit">qmgr_message_recipient_limit</a> 1655 1.1 tron recipients. It can be also sponsored from the message recipient 1656 1.1 tron pool of <a href="postconf.5.html#qmgr_message_recipient_minimum">qmgr_message_recipient_minimum</a> recipients. 1657 1.1 tron 1658 1.1 tron </p> 1659 1.1 tron 1660 1.1 tron <p> 1661 1.1 tron 1662 1.1 tron Now how does each transport distribute the recipient slots among 1663 1.1 tron its jobs? The strategy is quite simple. As most scheduler activity 1664 1.1 tron happens on the head of the job list, it is our intention to make 1665 1.1 tron sure that the scheduler has the best estimates of the recipient 1666 1.1 tron counts for those jobs. As we mentioned above, this means that we 1667 1.1 tron want to try to make sure that the messages of those jobs have all 1668 1.1 tron recipients read in-core. Therefore the transport distributes the 1669 1.1 tron slots "along" the job list from start to end. In this case the job 1670 1.1 tron list sorted by message enqueue time is used, because it doesn't 1671 1.1 tron change over time as the scheduler's job list does. 1672 1.1 tron 1673 1.1 tron </p> 1674 1.1 tron 1675 1.1 tron <p> 1676 1.1 tron 1677 1.1 tron More specifically, each time a job is created and appended to the 1678 1.1 tron job list, it gets all unused recipient slots from its transport's 1679 1.1 tron pool. It keeps them until all recipients of its message are read. 1680 1.1 tron When this happens, all unused recipient slots are transferred to 1681 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin the next job (which is now in fact the first such job) on the job 1682 1.1 tron list which still has some recipients unread, or eventually back to 1683 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin the transport pool if there is no such job. Such a transfer then also 1684 1.1 tron happens whenever a recipient entry of that job is delivered. 1685 1.1 tron 1686 1.1 tron </p> 1687 1.1 tron 1688 1.1 tron <p> 1689 1.1 tron 1690 1.1 tron There is also a scenario when a job is not appended to the end of 1691 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin the job list (for example it was created as a result of a second or 1692 1.1 tron later recipient batch). Then it works exactly as above, except that 1693 1.1 tron if it was put in front of the first unread job (that is, the job 1694 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin of a message which still has some unread recipients in the queue file), 1695 1.1 tron that job is first forced to return all of its unused recipient slots 1696 1.1 tron to the transport pool. 1697 1.1 tron 1698 1.1 tron </p> 1699 1.1 tron 1700 1.1 tron <p> 1701 1.1 tron 1702 1.1 tron The algorithm just described leads to the following state: The first 1703 1.1 tron unread job on the job list always gets all the remaining recipient 1704 1.1 tron slots of that transport (if there are any). The jobs queued before 1705 1.1 tron this job are completely read (that is, all recipients of their 1706 1.1 tron message were already read in core) and have at maximum as many slots 1707 1.1 tron as they still have recipients in-core (the maximum is there because 1708 1.1 tron of the sponsoring mentioned before) and the jobs after this job get 1709 1.1 tron nothing from the transport recipient pool (unless they got something 1710 1.1 tron before and then the first unread job was created and enqueued in 1711 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin front of them later - in such a case, they also get at maximum as many 1712 1.1 tron slots as they have recipients in-core). 1713 1.1 tron 1714 1.1 tron </p> 1715 1.1 tron 1716 1.1 tron <p> 1717 1.1 tron 1718 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin Things work fine in such a state for most of the time, because the 1719 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin current job is either completely read in-core or has as many recipient 1720 1.1 tron slots as there are, but there is one situation which we still have 1721 1.1 tron to take care of specially. Imagine if the current job is preempted 1722 1.1 tron by some unread job from the job list and there are no more recipient 1723 1.1 tron slots available, so this new current job could read only batches 1724 1.1 tron of <a href="postconf.5.html#qmgr_message_recipient_minimum">qmgr_message_recipient_minimum</a> recipients at a time. This would 1725 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin really degrade performance. For this reason, each transport has an 1726 1.1 tron extra pool of <a href="postconf.5.html#transport_extra_recipient_limit"><i>transport</i>_extra_recipient_limit</a> recipient 1727 1.1 tron slots, dedicated exactly for this situation. Each time an unread 1728 1.1 tron job preempts the current job, it gets half of the remaining recipient 1729 1.1 tron slots from the normal pool and this extra pool. 1730 1.1 tron 1731 1.1 tron </p> 1732 1.1 tron 1733 1.1 tron <p> 1734 1.1 tron 1735 1.1 tron And that's it. It sure does sound pretty complicated, but fortunately 1736 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin most people don't really have to care exactly how it works as long 1737 1.1 tron as it works. Perhaps the only important things to know for most 1738 1.1 tron people are the following upper bound formulas: 1739 1.1 tron 1740 1.1 tron </p> 1741 1.1 tron 1742 1.1 tron <p> 1743 1.1 tron 1744 1.1 tron Each transport has at maximum 1745 1.1 tron 1746 1.1 tron </p> 1747 1.1 tron 1748 1.1 tron <blockquote> 1749 1.1 tron <pre> 1750 1.1 tron max( 1751 1.1 tron <a href="postconf.5.html#qmgr_message_recipient_minimum">qmgr_message_recipient_minimum</a> * <a href="postconf.5.html#qmgr_message_active_limit">qmgr_message_active_limit</a> 1752 1.1 tron + *_recipient_limit + *_extra_recipient_limit, 1753 1.1 tron <a href="postconf.5.html#qmgr_message_recipient_limit">qmgr_message_recipient_limit</a> 1754 1.1 tron ) 1755 1.1 tron </pre> 1756 1.1 tron </blockquote> 1757 1.1 tron 1758 1.1 tron <p> 1759 1.1 tron 1760 1.1 tron recipients in core. 1761 1.1 tron 1762 1.1 tron </p> 1763 1.1 tron 1764 1.1 tron <p> 1765 1.1 tron 1766 1.1 tron The total amount of recipients in core is 1767 1.1 tron 1768 1.1 tron </p> 1769 1.1 tron 1770 1.1 tron <blockquote> 1771 1.1 tron <pre> 1772 1.1 tron max( 1773 1.1 tron <a href="postconf.5.html#qmgr_message_recipient_minimum">qmgr_message_recipient_minimum</a> * <a href="postconf.5.html#qmgr_message_active_limit">qmgr_message_active_limit</a> 1774 1.1 tron + sum( *_recipient_limit + *_extra_recipient_limit ), 1775 1.1 tron <a href="postconf.5.html#qmgr_message_recipient_limit">qmgr_message_recipient_limit</a> 1776 1.1 tron ) 1777 1.1 tron </pre> 1778 1.1 tron </blockquote> 1779 1.1 tron 1780 1.1 tron <p> 1781 1.1 tron 1782 1.1 tron where the sum is over all used transports. 1783 1.1 tron 1784 1.1 tron </p> 1785 1.1 tron 1786 1.1 tron <p> 1787 1.1 tron 1788 1.1 tron And this terribly complicated chapter concludes the documentation 1789 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin of the <tt>nqmgr</tt> scheduler. 1790 1.1 tron 1791 1.1 tron </p> 1792 1.1 tron 1793 1.1 tron <p> 1794 1.1 tron 1795 1.1 tron [By now you should theoretically know the <tt>nqmgr</tt> scheduler 1796 1.1 tron inside out. In practice, you still hope that you will never have 1797 1.1 tron to really understand the last or last two chapters completely, and 1798 1.1 tron fortunately most people really won't. Understanding how the scheduler 1799 1.1.1.3.26.1 martin works in ideal conditions is more than good enough for the vast majority 1800 1.1 tron of users.] 1801 1.1 tron 1802 1.1 tron </p> 1803 1.1 tron 1804 1.1 tron <h2> <a name="credits"> Credits </a> </h2> 1805 1.1 tron 1806 1.1 tron <ul> 1807 1.1 tron 1808 1.1 tron <li> Wietse Venema designed and implemented the initial queue manager 1809 1.1 tron with per-domain FIFO scheduling, and per-delivery +/-1 concurrency 1810 1.1 tron feedback. 1811 1.1 tron 1812 1.1 tron <li> Patrik Rak designed and implemented preemption where mail with 1813 1.1 tron fewer recipients can slip past mail with more recipients in a 1814 1.1 tron controlled manner, and wrote up its documentation. 1815 1.1 tron 1816 1.1 tron <li> Wietse Venema initiated a discussion with Patrik Rak and Victor 1817 1.1 tron Duchovni on alternatives for the +/-1 feedback scheduler's aggressive 1818 1.1 tron behavior. This is when K/N feedback was reviewed (N = concurrency). 1819 1.1 tron The discussion ended without a good solution for both negative 1820 1.1 tron feedback and dead site detection. 1821 1.1 tron 1822 1.1 tron <li> Victor Duchovni resumed work on concurrency feedback in the 1823 1.1 tron context of concurrency-limited servers. 1824 1.1 tron 1825 1.1 tron <li> Wietse Venema then re-designed the concurrency scheduler in 1826 1.1 tron terms of the simplest possible concepts: less-than-1 concurrency 1827 1.1 tron feedback per delivery, forward and reverse concurrency feedback 1828 1.1 tron hysteresis, and pseudo-cohort failure. At this same time, concurrency 1829 1.1 tron feedback was separated from dead site detection. 1830 1.1 tron 1831 1.1 tron <li> These simplifications, and their modular implementation, helped 1832 1.1 tron to develop further insights into the different roles that positive 1833 1.1 tron and negative concurrency feedback play, and helped to identify some 1834 1.1 tron worst-case scenarios. 1835 1.1 tron 1836 1.1 tron </ul> 1837 1.1 tron 1838 1.1 tron </body> 1839 1.1 tron 1840 1.1 tron </html> 1841
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