Re: big picture UDP/IP performance question re 2.6.18 -> 2.6.32

[Chris Friesen]

On 10/06/2011 11:40 PM, Eric Dumazet wrote:
> Le jeudi 06 octobre 2011 à 23:27 -0400, starlight@xxxxxxxxxxx a écrit :

> > If the older kernels are switching to NAPI
> > for much of surge and the switching out
> > once the pulse falls off, it might
> > conceivably result in much better latency
> > and overall performance.

> Thats exactly the opposite : Your old kernel is not fast enough to
> enter/exit NAPI on every incoming frame.
>
> Instead of one IRQ per incoming frame, you have less interrupts :
> A napi run processes more than 1 frame.
>
> Now increase your incoming rate, and you'll discover a new kernel will
> be able to process more frames without losses.

I wonder if it would make sense to adjust the interrupt mitigation 
parameters in the NIC to allow it to accumulate a few packets before 
interrupting the CPU.  We had good luck using this to reduce interrupt 
rate on a quasi-pathological case where we were bouncing in and out of 
NAPI because we were *just* fast enough to keep up with incoming packets.

Chris



--
Chris Friesen
Software Developer
GENBAND
chris.friesen@xxxxxxxxxxx
www.genband.com
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