Re: performance bug in virtio net xdp

From: Michael S. Tsirkin
Date: Wed May 06 2020 - 07:57:22 EST


On Wed, May 06, 2020 at 10:37:57AM +0200, Jesper Dangaard Brouer wrote:
> On Wed, 6 May 2020 04:08:27 -0400
> "Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > So for mergeable bufs, we use ewma machinery to guess the correct buffer
> > size. If we don't guess correctly, XDP has to do aggressive copies.
> >
> > Problem is, xdp paths do not update the ewma at all, except
> > sometimes with XDP_PASS. So whatever we happen to have
> > before we attach XDP, will mostly stay around.
> >
> > The fix is probably to update ewma unconditionally.
>
> I personally find the code hard to follow, and (I admit) that it took
> me some time to understand this code path (so I might still be wrong).
>
> In patch[1] I tried to explain (my understanding):
>
> In receive_mergeable() the frame size is more dynamic. There are two
> basic cases: (1) buffer size is based on a exponentially weighted
> moving average (see DECLARE_EWMA) of packet length. Or (2) in case
> virtnet_get_headroom() have any headroom then buffer size is
> PAGE_SIZE. The ctx pointer is this time used for encoding two values;
> the buffer len "truesize" and headroom. In case (1) if the rx buffer
> size is underestimated, the packet will have been split over more
> buffers (num_buf info in virtio_net_hdr_mrg_rxbuf placed in top of
> buffer area). If that happens the XDP path does a xdp_linearize_page
> operation.
>
>
> The EWMA code is not used when headroom is defined, which e.g. gets
> enabled when running XDP.
>
>
> [1] https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/158824572816.2172139.1358700000273697123.stgit@firesoul/

You are right.
So I guess the problem is just inconsistency?

When XDP program returns XDP_PASS, and it all fits in one page,
then we trigger
ewma_pkt_len_add(&rq->mrg_avg_pkt_len, head_skb->len);

if it does not trigger XDP_PASS, or does not fit in one page,
then we don't.

Given XDP does not use ewma for sizing, let's not update the average
either.


> --
> Best regards,
> Jesper Dangaard Brouer
> MSc.CS, Principal Kernel Engineer at Red Hat
> LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/brouer