Re: [PATCH net V2] vhost: net: switch to use data copy if pending DMAs exceed the limit

[Jason Wang]

On 03/08/2014 05:39 AM, David Miller wrote:
> From: Jason Wang <jasowang@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Fri,  7 Mar 2014 13:28:27 +0800
>
>> This is because the delay added by htb may lead the delay the finish
>> of DMAs and cause the pending DMAs for tap0 exceeds the limit
>> (VHOST_MAX_PEND). In this case vhost stop handling tx request until
>> htb send some packets. The problem here is all of the packets
>> transmission were blocked even if it does not go to VM2.
> Isn't this essentially head of line blocking?

Yes it is.
>> We can solve this issue by relaxing it a little bit: switching to use
>> data copy instead of stopping tx when the number of pending DMAs
>> exceed half of the vq size. This is safe because:
>>
>> - The number of pending DMAs were still limited (half of the vq size)
>> - The out of order completion during mode switch can make sure that
>>   most of the tx buffers were freed in time in guest.
>>
>> So even if about 50% packets were delayed in zero-copy case, vhost
>> could continue to do the transmission through data copy in this case.
>>
>> Test result:
>>
>> Before this patch:
>> VM1 to VM2 throughput is 9.3Mbit/s
>> VM1 to External throughput is 40Mbit/s
>> CPU utilization is 7%
>>
>> After this patch:
>> VM1 to VM2 throughput is 9.3Mbit/s
>> Vm1 to External throughput is 93Mbit/s
>> CPU utilization is 16%
>>
>> Completed performance test on 40gbe shows no obvious changes in both
>> throughput and cpu utilization with this patch.
>>
>> The patch only solve this issue when unlimited sndbuf. We still need a
>> solution for limited sndbuf.
>>
>> Cc: Michael S. Tsirkin <mst@xxxxxxxxxx>
>> Cc: Qin Chuanyu <qinchuanyu@xxxxxxxxxx>
>> Signed-off-by: Jason Wang <jasowang@xxxxxxxxxx>
> I'd like some vhost experts reviewing this before I apply it.

Sure.
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