article · IEEE Transactions on Computers · 2025

KconfigTune: Automatic Performance Tuning for Linux Kernel Configuration

Ying Sun, Fangqi Bi, J. C. He, Shen Qu, Yanjun Wu, Pengpeng Hou

Cited by 0Abstract and details only

Abstract

The Linux kernel offers nearly 20,000 configuration options, making it highly customizable but also extremely challenging to manually optimize for performance. The diversity of operating environments and workloads further limits the effectiveness of static or expert-crafted configurations. This paper introduces KconfigTune, an automated tuning system that jointly optimizes Linux kernel configuration options and system-level parameters (e.g., procfs entries). We propose extconfig to expand the parameter search space and, for the first time, address configuration dependencies that arise during automated tuning. To ensure valid and bootable kernels, we design a dependency automatic fix tool and a GRUB-based mechanism. KconfigTune models the tuning process as a machine learning problem and applies Bayesian optimization with a random forest model to efficiently explore the vast and interdependent configuration space. Unlike prior approaches that focus solely on either kernel options or system parameters, KconfigTune achieves deeper integration by jointly tuning both compile-time and runtime behaviors. Experimental results show significant performance improvements, with gains of 18.62% and 19.92% over the default configuration in UnixBench and LEBench tests, respectively. Compared to the state-of-the-art, KconfigTune outperforms by 2.9% and 12.69% in these benchmarks. Ablation studies further confirm that these gains primarily stem from the combined tuning of kernel configurations and system-level parameters.

Cite this paper

APA 7

Sun, Y., Bi, F., He, J. C., Qu, S., Wu, Y., & Hou, P. (2025). KconfigTune: Automatic Performance Tuning for Linux Kernel Configuration. IEEE Transactions on Computers, 75(3), 1000–1013. https://doi.org/10.1109/tc.2025.3644413

MLA 9

Sun, Ying, et al. “KconfigTune: Automatic Performance Tuning for Linux Kernel Configuration.” IEEE Transactions on Computers, vol. 75, no. 3, 2025, pp. 1000–13, https://doi.org/10.1109/tc.2025.3644413.

Chicago

Sun, Ying, Fangqi Bi, J. C. He, Shen Qu, Yanjun Wu, and Pengpeng Hou. 2025. “KconfigTune: Automatic Performance Tuning for Linux Kernel Configuration.” IEEE Transactions on Computers 75 (3): 1000–13. https://doi.org/10.1109/tc.2025.3644413.

Harvard

Sun, Y. et al. (2025) ‘KconfigTune: Automatic Performance Tuning for Linux Kernel Configuration’, IEEE Transactions on Computers, 75(3), pp. 1000–1013. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1109/tc.2025.3644413.

BibTeX

@article{sun2025kconfigtune,
  title = {{KconfigTune: Automatic Performance Tuning for Linux Kernel Configuration}},
  author = {Sun, Ying and Bi, Fangqi and He, J. C. and Qu, Shen and Wu, Yanjun and Hou, Pengpeng},
  journal = {IEEE Transactions on Computers},
  volume = {75},
  number = {3},
  pages = {1000--1013},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1109/tc.2025.3644413}
}

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