Linux – Tie a process to specific CPU cores

Pinning a userspace to a specific processor sometimes can make it perform more consistently; but not the kernel. (check taskset)

if it were possible, you would be turning the userspace/kernel switchtme (already a measurable factor in an OS performance) into an inter-processor communication / synchronization issue. Many orders of magnitude worse.

edit: now that you've removed the 'pin the kernel' idea, it's a lot more reasonable. Yes, you can use taskset to start all grid processes and leave one or two CPUs free for GlusterFS. For an analogous example, in Xen systems is considered a 'best practice' to reserve one CPU for the Dom0, which handles all I/O.

Download the stress utility from RPMforge or yum and run it with:

stress --cpu 16 to generate 16 workers. As stated above, run top with the 1 switch to show all CPUs in the listing.

Once you've verified the CPU listing and activity, Ctrl-C out of stress and run your application. Start top with the same switch and then use the H switch to show all process threads.