Re: [PATCH net-next 2/3] net: sched: implement TCQ_F_CAN_BYPASS for lockless qdisc

From: Jakub Kicinski
Date: Sat May 29 2021 - 14:49:31 EST


On Sat, 29 May 2021 15:03:09 +0800 Yunsheng Lin wrote:
> On 2021/5/29 12:32, Jakub Kicinski wrote:
> > On Sat, 29 May 2021 09:44:57 +0800 Yunsheng Lin wrote:
> >> MISSED is only set when there is lock contention, which means it
> >> is better not to do the qdisc bypass to avoid out of order packet
> >> problem,
> >
> > Avoid as in make less likely? Nothing guarantees other thread is not
> > interrupted after ->enqueue and before qdisc_run_begin().
> >
> > TBH I'm not sure what out-of-order situation you're referring to,
> > there is no ordering guarantee between separate threads trying to
> > transmit AFAIU.
> A thread need to do the bypass checking before doing enqueuing, so
> it means MISSED is set or the trylock fails for the bypass transmiting(
> which will set the MISSED after the first trylock), so the MISSED will
> always be set before a thread doing a enqueuing, and we ensure MISSED
> only be cleared during the protection of q->seqlock, after clearing
> MISSED, we do anther round of dequeuing within the protection of
> q->seqlock.

The fact that MISSED is only cleared under q->seqlock does not matter,
because setting it and ->enqueue() are not under any lock. If the thread
gets interrupted between:

if (q->flags & TCQ_F_CAN_BYPASS && nolock_qdisc_is_empty(q) &&
qdisc_run_begin(q)) {

and ->enqueue() we can't guarantee that something else won't come in,
take q->seqlock and clear MISSED.

thread1 thread2 thread3
# holds seqlock
qdisc_run_begin(q)
set(MISSED)
pfifo_fast_dequeue
clear(MISSED)
# recheck the queue
qdisc_run_end()
->enqueue()
q->flags & TCQ_F_CAN_BYPASS..
qdisc_run_begin() # true
sch_direct_xmit()
qdisc_run_begin()
set(MISSED)

Or am I missing something?

Re-checking nolock_qdisc_is_empty() may or may not help.
But it doesn't really matter because there is no ordering
requirement between thread2 and thread3 here.

> So if a thread has taken the q->seqlock and the MISSED is not set yet,
> it is allowed to send the packet directly without going through the
> qdisc enqueuing and dequeuing process.
>
> > IOW this check is not required for correctness, right?
>
> if a thread has taken the q->seqlock and the MISSED is not set, it means
> other thread has not set MISSED after the first trylock and before the
> second trylock, which means the enqueuing is not done yet.
> So I assume the this check is required for correctness if I understand
> your question correctly.
>
> >> another good thing is that we could also do the batch
> >> dequeuing and transmiting of packets when there is lock contention.
> >
> > No doubt, but did you see the flag get set significantly often here
> > to warrant the double-checking?
>
> No, that is just my guess:)