SCX Ba-Bawm

In dynamic environments with changing workloads, such as personal computers, the burden of selecting and dispatching the appropriate scheduler often falls on the user. In this project, we propose a method for automating workload profiling using eBPF. Our solution, called SCX Ba-Bawm, is a portable and system-agnostic package.

This repository contains our current code for the implementations of the profilers and the dispatcher, a video demo, scripts to run the code, as well as the related paper.

Prerequisites

• Linux Kernel >= 6.12 (Or kernel patched to enable sched_ext and eBPF capabilities).
• sched_ext/scx (if patched kernel)
• python
• bcc/BPF
• Optional:
  • tmux

Rest of the dependencies are handled by the install script

Instructions to run

• Clone the repo: git clone https://github.com/EddieFed/scx-ba-bawm
• Run the install script ./install.sh
• Start the profilers (choose any option):
  • Python Profilers ./start.sh
  • C profilers (recommended) ./start_c.sh
• Start the automatic dispatcher: sudo python dispatcher.py

Demo

• We have the profilers already running on the system using the start script (top left)
• The dispatcher script is also displaying current system load (HIGH/LOW output from the individual profilers)
• We run a sample network load test (bottom left)
• The dispatcher correctly identifies the network heavy workload and switches to the correct scheduler (right half)