| Message ID | 200905182218.47975.rusty@rustcorp.com.au |
|---|---|
| State | RFC, archived |
| Delegated to: | David Miller |
| Headers | show |
From: Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp.com.au> Date: Mon, 18 May 2009 22:18:47 +0930 > We check for finished xmit skbs on every xmit, or on a timer (unless > the host promises to force an interrupt when the xmit ring is empty). > This can penalize userspace tasks which fill their sockbuf. Not much > difference with TSO, but measurable with large numbers of packets. > > There are a finite number of packets which can be in the transmission > queue. We could fire the timer more than every 100ms, but that would > just hurt performance for a corner case. This seems neatest. ... > Signed-off-by: Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp.com.au> If this is so great for virtio it would also be a great idea universally, but we don't do it. What you're doing by orphan'ing is creating a situation where a single UDP socket can loop doing sends and monopolize the TX queue of a device. The only control we have over a sender for fairness in datagram protocols is that send buffer allocation. I'm guilty of doing this too in the NIU driver, also because there I lack a "TX queue empty" interrupt and this can keep TCP sockets from getting stuck. I think we need a generic solution to this issue because it is getting quite common to see cases where the packets in the TX queue of a device can sit there indefinitely. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe netdev" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
On Tue, 19 May 2009 12:10:13 pm David Miller wrote: > From: Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp.com.au> > Date: Mon, 18 May 2009 22:18:47 +0930 > > We check for finished xmit skbs on every xmit, or on a timer (unless > > the host promises to force an interrupt when the xmit ring is empty). > > This can penalize userspace tasks which fill their sockbuf. Not much > > difference with TSO, but measurable with large numbers of packets. > > > > There are a finite number of packets which can be in the transmission > > queue. We could fire the timer more than every 100ms, but that would > > just hurt performance for a corner case. This seems neatest. ... > > Signed-off-by: Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp.com.au> > > If this is so great for virtio it would also be a great idea > universally, but we don't do it. > > What you're doing by orphan'ing is creating a situation where a single > UDP socket can loop doing sends and monopolize the TX queue of a > device. The only control we have over a sender for fairness in > datagram protocols is that send buffer allocation. Urgh, that hadn't even occurred to me. Good point. > I'm guilty of doing this too in the NIU driver, also because there I > lack a "TX queue empty" interrupt and this can keep TCP sockets from > getting stuck. > > I think we need a generic solution to this issue because it is getting > quite common to see cases where the packets in the TX queue of a > device can sit there indefinitely. I haven't thought this through properly, but how about a hack where we don't orphan packets if the ring is over half full? Then I guess we could overload the watchdog as a more general timer-after-no- xmit? Rusty. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe netdev" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
From: Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp.com.au> Date: Thu, 21 May 2009 16:27:05 +0930 > On Tue, 19 May 2009 12:10:13 pm David Miller wrote: >> What you're doing by orphan'ing is creating a situation where a single >> UDP socket can loop doing sends and monopolize the TX queue of a >> device. The only control we have over a sender for fairness in >> datagram protocols is that send buffer allocation. > > Urgh, that hadn't even occurred to me. Good point. Now this all is predicated on this actually mattering. :-) You could argue that the scheduler as well as the size of the TX queue should be limiting and enforcing fairness. Someone really needs to test this. Just skb_orphan() every packet at the beginning of dev_hard_start_xmit(), then run some test program with two clients looping out UDP packets to see if one can monopolize the device and get a significantly larger amount of TX resources than the other. Repeat for 3, 4, 5, etc. clients. > I haven't thought this through properly, but how about a hack where > we don't orphan packets if the ring is over half full? That would also work. And for the NIU case this would be great because I DO have a marker bit for triggering interrupts in the TX descriptors. There's just no "all empty" interrupt on TX (who designs these things? :( ). > Then I guess we could overload the watchdog as a more general > timer-after-no- xmit? Yes, but it means that teardown of a socket can be delayed up to the amount of that timer. Factor in all of this crazy round_jiffies() stuff people do these days and it could cause pauses for real use cases and drive users batty. Probably the most profitable avenue is to see if this is a real issue afterall (see above). If we can get away with having the socket buffer represent socket --> device space only, that's the most ideal solution. It will probably also improve performance a lot across the board, especially on NUMA/SMP boxes as our TX complete events tend to be in difference places than the SKB producer. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe netdev" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
David Miller wrote: > From: Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp.com.au> > Date: Thu, 21 May 2009 16:27:05 +0930 > >> On Tue, 19 May 2009 12:10:13 pm David Miller wrote: >>> What you're doing by orphan'ing is creating a situation where a single >>> UDP socket can loop doing sends and monopolize the TX queue of a >>> device. The only control we have over a sender for fairness in >>> datagram protocols is that send buffer allocation. >> Urgh, that hadn't even occurred to me. Good point. > > Now this all is predicated on this actually mattering. :-) > > You could argue that the scheduler as well as the size of the > TX queue should be limiting and enforcing fairness. > > Someone really needs to test this. Just skb_orphan() every packet > at the beginning of dev_hard_start_xmit(), then run some test > program with two clients looping out UDP packets to see if one > can monopolize the device and get a significantly larger amount > of TX resources than the other. Repeat for 3, 4, 5, etc. clients. The cxgb3 driver has had skb_orphan in its transmit routine forever (also due to lack of Tx interrupts) and I am not aware of adverse effects caused by doing so. It does skip skb_orphan when skb_shared but probably nobody sends sharead skbs with destructors. The only application I know of that has trouble with lazy skb freeing is pktgen because it treats freeing as an indication that the packet has been transmitted so it's thrown off if packets sit there for a while. (Also freeing just indicates that the DMA is done, not that the packet has been sent, and modern devices have quite a bit of buffering.) > >> I haven't thought this through properly, but how about a hack where >> we don't orphan packets if the ring is over half full? > > That would also work. And for the NIU case this would be great > because I DO have a marker bit for triggering interrupts in the TX > descriptors. There's just no "all empty" interrupt on TX (who > designs these things? :( ). > >> Then I guess we could overload the watchdog as a more general >> timer-after-no- xmit? > > Yes, but it means that teardown of a socket can be delayed up to > the amount of that timer. Factor in all of this crazy > round_jiffies() stuff people do these days and it could cause > pauses for real use cases and drive users batty. > > Probably the most profitable avenue is to see if this is a real issue > afterall (see above). If we can get away with having the socket > buffer represent socket --> device space only, that's the most ideal > solution. It will probably also improve performance a lot across the > board, especially on NUMA/SMP boxes as our TX complete events tend to > be in difference places than the SKB producer. There's a comment in the cxgb3 driver where it calls skb_orphan that explains the rationale and includes some of what you're saying. > -- > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe netdev" in > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe netdev" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
difference with TSO, but measurable with large numbers of packets. There are a finite number of packets which can be in the transmission queue. We could fire the timer more than every 100ms, but that would just hurt performance for a corner case. This seems neatest. With interrupt when Tx ring empty: Seconds TxPkts TxIRQs 1G TCP Guest->Host: 3.76 32833 32758 1M normal pings: 111 1000008 997463 1M 1k pings (-l 120): 55 1000007 488920 Without interrupt, without orphaning: 1G TCP Guest->Host: 3.64 32806 1 1M normal pings: 106 1000008 1 1M 1k pings (-l 120): 68 1000005 1 With orphaning: 1G TCP Guest->Host: 3.86 32821 1 1M normal pings: 102 1000007 1 1M 1k pings (-l 120): 43 1000005 1 Signed-off-by: Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp.com.au> --- drivers/net/virtio_net.c | 5 +++++ 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+) diff --git a/drivers/net/virtio_net.c b/drivers/net/virtio_net.c --- a/drivers/net/virtio_net.c +++ b/drivers/net/virtio_net.c @@ -522,6 +522,11 @@ static int start_xmit(struct sk_buff *sk { struct virtnet_info *vi = netdev_priv(dev); + /* We queue a limited number; don't let that delay writers if + * we are slow in getting tx interrupt. */ + if (!vi->free_in_tasklet) + skb_orphan(skb); + again: /* Free up any pending old buffers before queueing new ones. */ free_old_xmit_skbs(vi);