An analysis of performance evolution of Linux's core operations

This paper presents an analysis of how Linux's performance has evolved over the past seven years. Unlike recent works that focus on OS performance in terms of scalability or service of a particular workload, this study goes back to basics: the latency of core kernel operations (e.g., system calls, context switching, etc.). To our surprise, the study shows that the performance of many core operations has worsened or fluctuated significantly over the years. For example, the select system call is 100% slower than it was just two years ago. An in-depth analysis shows that over the past seven years, core kernel subsystems have been forced to accommodate an increasing number of security enhancements and new features. These additions steadily add overhead to core kernel operations but also frequently introduce extreme slowdowns of more than 100%. In addition, simple misconfigurations have also severely impacted kernel performance. Overall, we find most of the slowdowns can be attributed to 11 changes. Some forms of slowdown are avoidable with more proactive engineering. We show that it is possible to patch two security enhancements (from the 11 changes) to eliminate most of their overheads. In fact, several features have been introduced to the kernel unoptimized or insufficiently tested and then improved or disabled long after their release. Our findings also highlight both the feasibility and importance for Linux users to actively configure their systems to achieve an optimal balance between performance, functionality, and security: we discover that 8 out of the 11 changes can be avoided by reconfiguring the kernel, and the other 3 can be disabled through simple patches. By disabling the 11 changes with the goal of optimizing performance, we speed up Redis, Apache, and Nginx benchmark workloads by as much as 56%, 33%, and 34%, respectively.