Tickless Kernel

For high-performance applications, using a tickless kernel can result in improved performance. The host kernel must have the cores operating in tickless mode, and the same cores should be dedicated to the application.

The host kernel might have been built with the CONFIG_​NO_​HZ_​FULL_​ALL option. If so, tickless operation happens automatically on any core on which the Linux scheduler has only one thread to run. To check for this, look for that string in your Linux kernel config file. This file might be at /boot/<kernel version> (determine your kernel version with “uname -a”) or at /proc/config.gz.

If the kernel was not built with CONFIG_​NO_​HZ_​FULL, it might still be possible to run tickless by configuring it in the grub file (see the Grub File section). Specify the same set of CPUs for both nohz_​full and isolcpus.